According to the police, armed attackers struck two communities in southeast Kenya’s Lamu district on Sunday, killing five people.
Additionally, the attackers set houses on fire and damaged property. The police referred to the occurrence as a “terrorist attack,” a term they frequently employ to describe invasions by the Al-Shabaab group in Somalia.
Al-Shabaab rebels routinely launch attacks in Lamu, close to Kenya’s border with Somalia, in an effort to persuade Kenya to withdraw its troops from Somalia, where they are serving as part of an international peacekeeping mission defending the central government.
The Salama and Juhudi villages were attacked early on Sunday morning, according to the police.
A 60-year-old man was bound with a rope and “his throat slit, his house was burnt with all belongings”. Three others were killed in a similar manner while a fifth victim was shot.
The attackers set fire to the victims’ and other inhabitants’ homes before fleeing into a neighboring forest, according to authorities.
Al-Shabaab, an organisation affiliated with al Qaeda, has been fighting in Somalia for years in an effort to overthrow the national government and install its own system of governance based on a strict application of sharia law.
