Kenya: three teachers killed, one kidnapped, shebab attack

Three teachers were killed and one kidnapped in eastern Kenya on Monday by suspected Islamist Shebab activists, who also partially destroyed a telecommunications pylon and set fire to a police station, sources said. police.

Around 02:00 Monday (23:00 GMT Sunday), « suspected armed Shebab militiamen attacked Kamuthe primary school, Kamuthe police station, a telecommunications pylon and killed three teachers, » said Kenyan police in a statement.

« The telecommunications tower is partially damaged but is still working, » added the police, who set off in pursuit of the attackers.

Kamuthe is located 40 km south of the city of Garissa in south-eastern Kenya.

“Three teachers who are not from the region were killed and a local teacher was kidnapped. They spared a local nurse because of her gender, « said a police report which the AFP obtained.

« They also set fire to » the Kamuthe police station, a senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Increase in attacks

Since the beginning of the year, the Shebab have intensified their attacks in eastern Kenya, near the border with Somalia, and the Kenyan police are on high alert.

On January 5, Shebab fighters attacked an American-Kenyan military base in Lamu (southeast), killing three Americans – a soldier and two Pentagon contractors – and destroying several aircraft.

Two days later, they killed four civilians, including a child, in a primary school in Saretho, 25 km from the Dadaab refugee camp, near Garissa, by already attacking a communication pylon.

Affiliated with Al Qaeda, the Shebab have sworn the loss of the Somali government, supported by the international community and the 20,000 men of the African Union force in Somalia (Amisom).

Driven out of Mogadishu in 2011, they lost most of their strongholds but still control large rural areas from where they conduct guerrilla warfare and suicide attacks.

Since its military intervention in southern Somalia in 2011 to fight the shebab, Kenya has been the target of several murderous attacks, including those of the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi (September 2013 – 67 dead) and the University of Garissa (April 2015 – 148 dead).

The most recent, conducted in January 2019 by Kenyan shebab against a Nairobi complex comprising the Dusit Hotel and offices, killed 21 people.