At least ten people have been killed in Kenya's northern border in a confrontation with Ethiopian cattle rustlers suspected of stealing hundreds of livestock, police confirmed on Tuesday.

Police spokesman Gideon Kibunja said Kenyan security forces shot dead five Ethiopian bandits on Sunday when security forces were pursuing a larger band of raiders and the stolen animals.

"The five Kenyans were killed when Ethiopian militia raided a Dukana village (in northern Kenya) in an apparent revenge attack. This brings the figure to ten -- five Kenyans and five Ethiopian bandits," said Kibunja by telephone.

He said the five was among a group of Ethiopian raiders who attacked the border town of Dukana on Saturday, wounding two Kenyan herders and making off with more than 600 head of cattle, all of which were later recovered.

Tension has been high in northern Kenya as a group of Ethiopian militiamen attacked a remote village near the common border over the weekend.

Kibunja said the attack has heightened tension along the two countries' frontier prompting Kenya to deploy additional security forces to patrol the common border that has been destabilized by decades of tribal fighting often sparked by cross-border cattle-rustling.

Hundreds of Kenyan herders have been displaced following an attack by Ethiopian insurgents on villages near the common border in northern Kenya.

The herders and their families have sought refuge in various places in fear of renewed attacks.

Cattle rustling are common in Kenya's poor and arid east and north where the mainly pastoral clans fight mainly for water and pasture.

The attacks also come only weeks after a peace meeting was held in Ethiopia aiming at resolving conflicts along the borders of the two countries.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2006 )