Gunmen have massacred at least 36 quarry workers in a fresh attack in Kenya’s northeast, police and the Red Cross said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of strikes in the troubled region bordering war-torn Somalia.
The attackers’ sprayed gunfire at tents where the workers were sleeping in the early hours of Tuesday morning near the town of Mandera, where Somalia’s al Qaeda-affiliated Shebab and other militia have carried out a string of raids, Kenyan media said.
The gunmen then separated non-Muslims from the other workers, beheaded several and executed the rest with a bullet to the head, police sources and media reports said, a pattern of attack similar to the killing of 28 people on a bus in the same region last month.
The quarry killings follow a separate attack Monday night in the town of Wajir — which like Mandera is close to the dangerous border with war-torn Somalia — which left one person dead and 12 wounded when gunmen hurled grenades and fired into a bar.
“Our team is on the ground undertaking assessments of the attack,” the Kenya Red Cross said Tuesday.
Police spokesman Zipporah Mboroki confirmed the attacks but said the force would provide exact tolls of those killed later.
However, a senior police official said 36 people had been killed and there were fears others may have been abducted.
“We have lost 36 people, but there are others missing,” said the police official, who asked not to be named.
“We don’t know whether they were taken by the attackers.”
