Tension is rising on border between Kilifi and Tana River counties following a dispute on land that has led to killings and kidnappings since Sunday.
Four people were killed on Monday in flare-up between Wardei pastoralists and Giriama farmers.
Local residents say those killed were shot, amid reports that one herdsman is missing after allegedly being kidnapped.
Police said they were aware of just one death but added that a search for the "missing people" was still on in the thickets amid reports several villagers had gone hiding in nearby bushes.
Tensions between the two ethnic groups who live in separate villages on the undefined boundary has been growing since last month when two people were killed in a clash over grazing land at Kasangani village, which is mainly occupied by Giriama farmers.
Reports show that the unsolved dispute might have been the cause of Monday's killing at Kasangani and the alleged kidnappings in the same area on Sunday.
"One person has been killed after being shot," said Mike Kimoko, the Tana Delta sub-county commissioner yesterday following the recovery of a body in a bush in Mithiraka village.
According to Kimoko, "a second person was shot and injured and has been admitted at Malindi District Hospital".
Reports indicate dozens of gun-totting attackers from Mithiraka invaded Kasangani in a bid to rescue an unnamed herdsman they believed had been kidnapped by Giriama farmers.
"The clashes began on Sunday," according to a local resident who asked not to be named who alleged that "local farmers in Kasangani abducted two herders who had taken their animals to farms in Kasangani."
Apparently, one of those kidnapped escaped and informed fellow herders about his alleged kin in captivity and on Monday the farmers say they were attacked from all directions by armed men who "killed three people".
Reports indicate police recovered a body of an unnamed victim near the shores of the Indian Ocean but it was not identified. The police search was said to be continuing in bushes surrounding Mithiraka and Kasangani villages.
Last evening, Tana Delta OCPD Robinson Thuku said police were yet to identify how many have been killed and left in the bush by yesterday.
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