January 31, 2016•Update: January 31, 2016
By Magdalene Mukami
NAIROBI, Kenya
Suspected al-Shabaab militants killed three people in a Sunday morning attack on a coastal Kenyan village, police said.
The attackers razed homes in Pandaguo, near Lamu, on the country’s northern Indian Ocean coast and left dozens injured.
Police Inspector General Joseph Boinett said the attack happened around 5 a.m. local time (0200GMT). “The attack happened early in the morning… we have sent additional police officers to secure the regions,” he said.
A senior police officer from Lamu county, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media, said: “This is not the first time that they have attacked this place, they have killed many people in the past. They usually come in from the Kenya-Somali border.
“They were heavily armed, they killed three people but the number might rise as some people have not been accounted for. Many others who were injured have been admitted to Mpeketoni Hospital. The injured told us that the attackers were conversing in Somali.”
Pandaguo lies 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the porous Kenya-Somali border. In June, more than 60 people were killed in the same area after al-Shabaab attacked Mpeketoni village, killing non-Muslims. Last week, six police officers were killed by a roadside bomb in Lamu county.
Al-Shabaab has carried out a number of attacks in Kenya in recent years, most notably the university attack last April that killed 148 and the 2013 assault on a Nairobi shopping center that killed 67.
