NAIROBI (AFP) – Six people died yesterday when a minibus was destroyed by a roadside bomb during an ambush by armed men in northeastern Kenya near the border with Somalia, police said.
The assailants opened fire on the 14-seater vehicle after it ran over the explosive device about eight kilometres from the town of Mandera.
“Six people were killed during an attack on a vehicle,” said national police spokesman Bruno Shioso.
“A security operation is under way to get the attackers.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the assault.
A police report said a General Service Unit patrol team, which was on foot and nearby, engaged the attackers, who fled towards the Somali border.
The assailants used guns and rocket-propelled grenades during the assault, it added.
The minibus, which was completely mangled in the attack, was carrying an unknown number of passengers.
Shioso told AFP seven people survived but had “various degrees of injuries”.
The Mandera region is prone to raids over its long and porous land border with Somalia, where the Al-Shabaab extremist militant group controls swathes of countryside.
Other regions bordering Somalia are also susceptible to attacks and Kenyan officials are often quick to blame the militants for assaults on its soil.
