Gunmen ambushed a security vehicle in northeastern Kenya on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, including two police reservists, police said.
The “armed militia” opened fire on the vehicle escorting construction workers along the Arabia Road corridor near the Kenya-Somalia border at around 7:00 am (0400 GMT), a police commander told AFP.
Mandera County, which borders Somalia to the east, has faced repeated attacks by Al-Shabaab militants in the past, often prompting curfews in the area.
“A team overseeing ongoing construction of Mandera-Arabia-Lafey road were ambushed at the Hagarsu area by armed militia,” Robinson Ndiwa, county police commander of Mandera, said.
“Two NPRs (National Police Reservists) and six civilians were fatally injured,” Ndiwa said, adding: “They were sprayed with bullets.”
The motive for the attack remains unclear and security agencies have been mobilised to pursue the attackers, Ndiwa said.
In July, five people, including four police officers, were killed when suspected jihadists ambushed a patrol vehicle near Lafey, a town in Mandera County about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Somali border.
