A Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldier was on Friday morning killed while four others were injured in a suspected Al-Shabaab attack in Lamu County.
The KDF troops were on patrol in Mlima Faru area in Lamu County when their vehicle triggered an Improvised Explosive Device suspected to have been planted on the road by Al-Shabaab militants.
KDF head of Strategic Communication Brig. Zipporah Kioko said in a statement that during the incident, five soldiers suffered blast injuries.
She said the critically injured soldiers were airlifted to the Defence Forces Memorial Hospital in Nairobi.
Brig. Kioko said that other soldiers were attended to at the Manda Base Hospital and are in stable condition.
“The entire KDF fraternity condoles with the family of our fallen hero and wishes a quick recovery to our injured soldiers," said Brig. Kioko.
The attack came after a police patrol vehicle ran over an improvised explosive device (IED) on the Witu-Pandanguo road in Mrima wa Faru area. An officer was injured in the explosion.
Two days earlier, a lorry driver and his conductor were killed while motorcycles were torched when heavily armed suspected al-Shabaab militants ambushed vehicles at Mambo Sasa, near Witu on the Lamu-Witu-Garsen route.
And, on Christmas Day, suspected al-Shabaab militants raided Ziwa la Taa village in Pandanguo within Boni forest and killed two people, and torched a house belonging to a National Police Reservist (NPR). Coast Regional Commissioner said the Pandanguo attack was land-related and not insecurity.
