/ 6 July 2014

Gunmen kill scores in two attacks on Kenyan coast

Kenyan soldiers patrol Kismayo in Somalia in a file photograph from October 5 2012.
Kenyan soldiers patrol Kismayo in Somalia in a file photograph from October 5 2012.

Gunmen killed at least 29 people in raids on two separate areas on the Kenyan coast, the interior ministry said on Sunday. The Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi last September, said it had staged an attack on Saturday evening in the coastal area.

Nine people were killed at the Hindi trading centre in Lamu county, near the scene of attacks in which 65 people were killed last month, Mwenda Njoka, the ministry’s spokesperson told Reuters.

Another 20 people were killed in another attack in the Gamba area of neighbouring Tana River county. Both counties are situated north of the port of Mombasa.

“There were two attacks in Lamu and Tana River last night. In Lamu we have nine people dead and in Tana River we have 20. The number could rise,” Njoka said by telephone.

Officials said a group of 10 to 15 men struck at Hindi, situated 15km from the town of Lamu, and close to the town of Mpeketoni, which was nearly destroyed in one of the attacks in June, at about 10pm on Saturday.

“They went around shooting at people and villages indiscriminately,” Abdallah Shahasi, the area chief, told Reuters.

Al-Shabab said it had broken into the police station at Gamba and freed suspects from the detention cells. A Kenyan police source corroborated that account.

“They killed some of our colleagues and freed Muslim detainees. Some of those freed were linked to the Mpeketoni attacks two weeks ago. We still don’t know how many detainees were freed until we verify with registers at the station,” the police source who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Miiri Njenga, the Lamu county commissioner, said the attackers targeted government offices and some properties were burnt down.

The Kenyan Red Cross said three people were taken to hospital with injuries, from both areas, adding another one was reported missing in Gamba.

The wave of gun and grenade attacks along the coast and in Nairobi has hurt the tourism business, a leading source of foreign exchange.

Meanwhile, a powerful car bomb exploded near Somalia’s Parliament in the capital Mogadishu on Saturday, causing casualties, police and witnesses said.

“A car loaded with explosives was intercepted near the Parliament and it went off. There are casualties but we don’t have details so far,” said police official Mohamed Idle. – Reuters, AFP