Photo: VPPS

Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka attended a funeral for 10 church members who died during attacks on Garissa churches.

Nairobi — Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka has urged Kenyans to support community policing in the fight against terrorism among other criminal activities.

Speaking at Musila Gardens in Mwingi town at a mass funeral service for ten members of the African Inland Church (AIC) who died during the Garissa grenade attacks, the VP insisted that security personnel alone cannot eliminate acts of lawless without support from members of the public.

"Security matters should not be left to security agents alone. This is a collective responsibility that each one of us must take part in exposing criminals amongst us," said the VP.

Musyoka hailed the move by Christians and Muslims to work together in the fight against terrorism, noting that it was not time to engage in blame game over the matter.

"I appeal to each one of us to avoid engaging in blame game whenever there is a problem as such kind of a situation can lead to hatred among ourselves. We should instead get the root cause of such problem and explore ways of containing it," he added.

On calls by a section of leaders at the ceremony that Kenyan forces in Somalia should be withdrawn and take charge of internal matters, the Vice President said the forces in the neighboring country played a greater role in restoring peace in the two nations.

"We should know that our forces in Somalia are working for the benefit of not only security in that country but also here in Kenya. If there is no security in Somalia, there will also be no security here in Kenya," said Musyoka.

Speaker after speaker, among them Defense Assistant Minister David Musila, his Water counterpart Ferdinand Waititu and MPs Kiema Kilonzo, Mutava Musyimi, Isaac Muoki and former cabinet minister Nyiva Mwendwa condemned the attack and called for proper investigations to establish the motive of the attacks.

Musila, who is also the Mwingi South MP condemned the terrorism attacks, saying they posed a threat to political and economic growth of the country.

He said it is discouraging that none of the criminals has been brought to book and called on the police to show their seriousness in the fight against the menace.

"We lost so many people and the police commissioner should take stiffer action so that people are assured of their security, we are fighting the AlShabab and we just seem to have relaxed," he said.

Mutitu MP Kiema Kilonzo urged the Government to provide security to all churches in the country besides intensifying the fight against criminal activities.

Former Cabinet Minister Nyiva Mwendwa said the Government should involve the military in internal matters if police are unable to contain insecurity in the country

Families of the 10 in Mwingi preceded to burry their loved ones separately after the funeral service.  Seventeen people were killed while 40 others sustained injuries during two separate attacks on AIC and the Catholic Church, respectively, in Garissa town two weeks ago.