A suspected grenade attack on a Nairobi church Sunday killed one child and wounded nine others, triggering reprisal violence against the Somali community although no group claimed responsibility. The blast, during a service for youngsters at a church on the outskirts of Nairobi, came a day after Islamist Shebab fighters abandoned their last bastion in neighbouring Somalia in the face of an assault by Kenyan and other troops. Blood-stained children’s jackets and shoes lay scattered on the floor of the Anglican St. Polycarp church, surrounded by remnants of metal walls that were broken and twisted by the force of the explosion. “One child has died and three others have been seriously injured,” Nairobi police chief Moses Nyakwama told AFP. “We suspect it was a grenade.” Witnesss Janet Wanja said she was just entering the church in the Pangani district on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital when the blast shook the building. After the attack, dozens of angry people hurled rocks at Somalis and stoned buildings belonging to members of the community, but noone was reported injured in the chaos. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the church attack, the latest in a string of grenade attacks, shootings and bomb blasts that have rocked Kenya since it sent troops into southern Somalia in October 2011 to crush bases of Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab fighters.
