Five police officers shot dead, 8 injured in Al-Shabaab attack in Lamu
Five police officers shot dead, 8 injured in Al-Shabaab attack in Lamu
Five police officers were shot dead and eight others injured by Al-Shabaab militants at the Rakei area of Boni Forest, Lamu County.
The militants are said to have ambushed the Special Operations Unit (SOU) officers as they pursued other suspects believed to be al-Shabaab operatives in the region.
The attack left another five officers from the unit with serious injuries.
Sources indicated that some of the militants also sustained injuries during the encounter.
Reports indicated that the officers had spent two days inside the forest tracking the criminals. This followed intelligence that the militants were planning to launch a large-scale ambush.
According to Lamu Police Commissioner Wesley Koech, preliminary reports indicate that over 70 members of the militia group attempted to cross the Bodhei-Lamu border via Garissa before encountering the police officers attached to the Special Operations Group (SOG).
Following the altercation, the injured officers, alongside the bodies of the deceased, were airlifted to Nairobi.
The incident occurred 3 kilometres from Lamu, with Commissioner Koech speculating that the Al-Shabaab militants sought to cross the border to carry out attacks.
He cautioned Kenyans to report any suspicious activities from unidentified persons within a community.
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Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, on Thursday, visited the injured officers at Nairobi West Hospital, and condemned the attack.
Murkomen, who was flanked by Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja, pledged the government’s commitment to cracking down on the assailants.
Meanwhile, Murkomen said a police officer who was injured during an anti-gang operation in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, was also receiving treatment at the same facility.
Kenya is leading the Multinational Security Support mission in the Caribbean country, which was authorised by the UN Security Council in October 2023.
The objective of the operation is to help Haiti’s national police combat the rising gang violence and reestablish security.
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