Girl killed after Somali gunmen attack village

Wednesday, July 04, 2012
By ADOW JUBAT

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Police are pursuing gunmen who raided a village in Mandera and shot dead a schoolgirl.

The masked gunmen armed with AK-47 and G3 rifles looted several shops of foodstuff, soft drinks, clothes and money before escaping towards Somali border town of Bulla-Hawa carrying their looted items on donkeys. The schoolgirl, 16, a pupil at Harari-Hosle Primary School in Mandera East District, five kilometres from the volatile Kenya and Somalia border, was shot several times on the chest by the militia inside her father’s hut in the 1am incident.

Speaking to The Standard on the phone, area councillor Mude Kore said the girl was shot after the gang opened fire on the hut she was sleeping in with her mother and siblings. The others escaped unhurt.

Local leaders said the militia burnt down two houses of two police reservists and shops were among those badly looted.

The civic leaders said there are only four Kenya Police Reservists providing security to over 30,000 families.Mandera East acting DC Elvis Korir confirmed the incident saying the militia, estimated to be about 20 by eyewitnesses, surrounded the remote village then opened fire on the homesteads of two police reservists before killing the minor who was asleep in one of the homesteads.

The administrator said the pupil was the daughter of a police reservist. The attackers missed her father, whom they were targeting.

“Our investigation indicates that the assailants were looking for the police reservist since they targeted his house before they discovered he was out on duty and they turned their guns on the minor,” he added.

The militia has been targeting the reservists who provide security in the villages.

Early this year, another Kenya Police Reservist was killed by suspected Somali militia in the village.

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