President Uhuru Kenyatta paid a visit to some of the victims of an al-Shabaab attack that left 14 people killed on Tuesday in Kenya’s Mandera Town, North Eastern Kenya.
The injured were airlifted to Kenyatta Hospital in the capital Nairobi.
A military plane flew them to Nairobi, where President Kenyatta saw them. Al-Shabaab gunmen attacked a residential complex in Mandera county, which housed mostly quarry workers.
The Islamic militant group is said to have targeted Christians.
Tuesday’s raid will heighten pressure on Kenyatta to beef up security in response to militant attacks, the worst of which killed 148 people at a university in eastern Kenya’s Garissa County in April.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery said security agents had no prior information about the attack. He said the attackers sneaked in from Somalia and raided the estate at around 1.30am.
They blew up a gate using an improvised explosive device and started shooting indiscriminately once inside.
Tuesday’s attack on a quarry in Mandera in Northern Kenya is the second targeting a quarry.
The attack is similar to another attack in which 36 quarry workers were killed last December in the town.
Members of Somalia’s al-Shabab armed group also hijacked a bus in November last year killing 28 non-Muslims on board after singling them out from the rest of the passengers.
The bus which was travelling to the capital Nairobi with 60 passengers was hijacked 50km from the town of Mandera near Kenya’s border with Somalia.
Al-Shabaab militants have been seeking to clear the region near the Somalia border of non-locals by attacking and killing them in its effort to spread Sharia law.
The raiders took position outside a building hosting non-locals and planted explosives at the entrance before they started shooting.
“Police on patrol responded but the attackers managed to escape by crossing a dry river before disappearing into nearby bushes,” said Mandera County Commissioner Alex ole Nkoyo.
“They shot those who were sleeping outside then followed some of them into their rooms and killed 14 people.”
Residents said they were awakened by two explosions, followed by heavy gunfire in the middle of the night.
