Kargi has a rich cultural history of one of the most gentle tribes in Kenya. The discovery and settlement of people, the Rendille, who are pastoralist in nature, began quite earlier than 1850. Some descriptive landmarks are the dark mountains, Haldayan (meaning Marsabit) and the vast salty desert lake Turkana in the west of the Marsabit/Mt Kulal biosphere. Kargi has a history of more than ten agesets. Many Rendille leaders came from Kargi. Among the first teachers, Mr. George I. Orre, Francis S. Orgule, The
UNESCO researcher Dr. Phil, (American), The first colonial Governor of Marsabit, First Bishop Cavallera, among the first Italian missionaries who arrived in 1950’s and the first primary school spread knowledge amongst the Rendille people. H.E. Titus Ngoyoni, the late MP for Laismis constituency, are among the few others. The recent Senator Abubakar Harugura, Joseph Lekuton, Robert Kochale, and Chief Ogom. Kargi holds a memorable history of many massacres between the Gabra and Rendille people. This includes the brutal killings of Bargeri at Bagasi in 1968, the inter-clan conflicts, the raids, ancient female gender ageset lifestyle mapping, nomadic inputs and cultural events. In 2017, the Kenya Off-Grid Solar Access Project (KOSAP) was launched, which planned to provide energy to 277,000 households (1.3 million people) in remote, low density, and underserved areas of Kenya. It aimed to provide energy to towns like Kargi via
mini-grids . In 2020, residents from Kargi sued the state of Kenya over claims of poisonous materials being dumped in the area by international corporations. One of the companies mentioned was
Amoco Petroleum, which
explored for oil in the 1980s, and after no success, abandoned the project without properly cleaning. It is reported that the dumping of these materials has caused the deaths of 7,000 animals after contaminating water supplies. In 2021, World
Desertification and
Drought Day was held on 17 June, where some 10,000 trees were planted. On the 1st of March at 2AM, bandits attacked the town of Kargi, stealing about a 1000 sheep and goats and killing 3, two of which were children aged 7 and 8, and the other was a 35 year old herdsman ==References==