ICC Note: Last week a grenade attack injured eight people in northern Kenya including at least one Christian. The attack took place in a region where radical Muslims from Somalia carried out fatal anti-Christian attacks towards the end of 2014. Though not yet confirmed, it is suspected that the rebel group Al Shabaab from Somalia is behind the attack as similar attacks have taken place against Christians in the region in recent months.
02/11/2015 Kenya (Morning Star News) – A grenade attack in northern Kenya last week injured eight people, including at least one Christian, in an area where Somali Islamic extremists launched deadly anti-Christian attacks in December and November, sources said.
The grenade landed among the non-Somali workers as they arrived to eat at the Moyale Hotel in Mandera on Thursday (Feb. 5) at about 7 p.m., injuring two of them critically. In the December and November attacks, members of Somali rebel Al Shabaab separated out Kenyan Christians from Somali Muslims and executed the non-Muslims.
One of the victims of Thursday’s attack, Frederick (surname withheld for security reasons), said from his hospital bed that he was a Christian whose right leg was seriously injured in the explosion. After the grenade exploded he was also shot, leaving injuries to his stomach, chest and hand.
Originally from western Kenya, Frederick and the other seven had arrived from outside the area to work at a new bakery scheduled to open next to the hotel on Friday (Feb. 6). Having left the area after last year’s attacks, the workers had returned to Mandera after receiving assurances that security had been restored.
“The hand grenade was thrown less than 10 minutes after we left the bakery premises,” he told a Morning Star News contact at Mandera General Hospital.
The blast broke the leg of another one of the workers, sources said.
Al Shabaab took responsibility for the killing of 28 people, including 19 Christians, who had boarded a bus in Mandera on Nov. 22 and for the execution of 36 workers at a nearby quarry on Dec. 2.
“This incident that has taken place in the new year of 2015 is a signal that things are not good for us non-Muslims,” an area pastor told Morning Star News. “We need a lot of security.”
