Gunmen have kidnapped an Italian volunteer worker and wounded five other people as they opened fire in Kenya’s coastal region of Kilifi, police said.
The unidentified attackers, armed with AK-47 rifles, fired indiscriminately at residents at around 8pm local time (17:00 GMT) in the Chakama trading centre in Kilifi county, about 80km west of Malindi town, the National Police Service said on Twitter.
“The gang … abducted an Italian lady aged 23 years who is a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area,” it posted on Wednesday.
The wounded, aged between 10 and 23, were taken to hospital, with one in serious condition.
The National Police Service wishes to inform the public that last evening at about 8pm, a gang of men armed with AK 47 rifles attacked Chakama Trading centre in Chakama, Makongeni sub location in Kilifi county, about 80 kilometres west of Malindi town. 1/6
— National Police Service-Kenya (@NPSOfficial_KE) November 21, 2018
The motive for the attack is not yet clear, police said, as officers were pursuing the attackers.
“We assure the public that we are sparing no effort in tracking down the criminals and rescue the victim,” the National Police Service said.
Suspected members of al-Shabab, an armed group based in neighbouring Somalia, have launched several attacks in recent months in which Kenyan soldiers have been killed, but those attacks have all taken place in Lamu County, which is north of Kilifi and borders Somalia.
The armed group was also responsible for the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in the capital, Nairobi, in which nearly 70 people were killed.
Somali-based fighters have been blamed in the past for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenya’s coast.
Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-Shabab after the kidnappings of four foreigners.
One of the foreigners, a cancer-stricken quadriplegic Frenchwoman kidnapped off a Kenyan resort island, died in captivity in Somalia.
Al-Shabab has since carried out numerous attacks in Kenya, saying it is vengeance for the country’s troop presence in Somalia.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
