Degodia elders speak at a press conference in Nairobi on November 14, 2026, about the killings in Malkamari, in a still from a video by Nomad TV Kenya. Credit: Nomad TV Kenya (@Nomadtvkenya) on X.
At least eight Somali civilians, including women and children, were shot dead early on Saturday in an attack on a pastoralist settlement in Malkamari, in Ethiopia’s Dawa zone near the Kenyan border, local authorities said.
The attackers came upon the settlement in the Mubarak district before dawn, while residents were asleep, and opened fire, according to local reports cited by Anadolu Agency. Local authorities blamed an armed Oromo militia, a claim that could not be independently verified. Malkamari lies across the border from Kenya’s Mandera County.
Accounts on social media gave different versions of who was responsible. A Kenyan user from the area wrote that a father, his wife and their children were among those killed in Waba village and that all eight victims were from the Garre clan, blaming a militia from the Degodia, another Somali clan. Elders of the Degodia community in Nairobi and Mandera held a joint press conference in Nairobi later on Saturday about the killings, the broadcaster Nomad TV Kenya reported. Mereja Media could not confirm either account.
The attack adds to weeks of violence along the disputed boundary between the Oromia and Somali regions that began in Moyale on October 18, after a dispute over a regional flag and the killing of a 13 year old girl. Residents of the Kenyan side of Moyale told Anadolu they heard heavy gunfire and explosions overnight. Mandera Senator Ali Ibrahim Roba, writing on X this week about the conflicts under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said Ethiopians “keep searching for somewhere peaceful to live.”
Neither the Somali regional government nor the Oromia administration had commented on the Malkamari killings by Saturday evening. On Friday, Marsabit Governor Mohamud Ali said two Kenyans had been killed and 22 wounded by stray bullets and about 10,000 Kenyans displaced, and that more than 50,000 Ethiopians had crossed into his county. Mereja Media reported on Saturday on measles and rubella cases in the crowded shelters.
Sources
- Anadolu Agency, 8 killed in militia attack near Kenya-Ethiopia border, Nov 14
- Anadolu Agency, Stray bullets from Ethiopia fighting kill 2, displace 10,000 Kenyans, Nov 14
- Somali Breaking News on X, Nov 14
- Eymoi_Jnr on X, Nov 14
- Nomad TV Kenya on X, Degodia elders press conference, Nov 14
- Ali Ibrahim Roba on X, Nov 13
- Mereja Media, Heavy weapons fire in Moyale, measles in Kenyan shelters