Gunmen have kidnapped an Italian voluntary worker and wounded five others, including young children, as they opened fire in Kenya’s southeast coastal region of Kilifi, police said.
The unidentified attackers, armed with assault rifles, fired indiscriminately at residents at about 8pm local time (17:00 GMT) on Tuesday 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 included a 10-year-old who was shot in the eye and a 12-year-old who was hit in the thigh, police said. They were all taken to a hospital, with one in serious condition.
The kidnapped woman has been identified as Sylvia Constanca, who was working for the small Italian charity, according to local media.
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.
The attackers spoke Somali and opened fire on people fleeing the scene, witness Chad Joshua Kazungu told Reuters news agency.
“There were three attackers and they targeted the Italian lady,” he said.
Another unnamed witness told Kenyan TV channel KTN News that the attackers grabbed the woman as she came out of her room to find out what was going on.
“Their aim was to get money but they took off with her to the river and, before leaving the village, they started shooting in the air and they shot one woman and four boys,” the witness said.
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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 all those attacks have taken place in Lamu County, which is north of Kilifi and borders Somalia.
“We cannot rule out their [al-Shabab] involvement, but we are investigating,” a senior police officer told Kenya’s Capital FM News.
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.
Somalia-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
