A Kenyan commission of inquiry has begun hearings into the massacre of more than one-hundred-and forty ethnic Somalis in the north-eastern district of Wajir last month.

A local official told the commission that more than five hundred cattle raiders, armed with machetes and other weapons, attacked several villages inhabited by ethnic Somalis.

Commission members are later expected to hear from survivors of the massacre, who are now living in refugee camps in the Wajir district.