International Christian Concern | March 13, 2020
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on Wednesday, March 11, two Christians were killed and another was abducted when suspected al-Shabaab militants attacked two vehicles on the road between Elwak and Mandera in northeastern Kenya. This region has become a common location for the terror group to conduct attacks, in which they target non-local Christians.
In the first incident, the Somali-based terror group ambushed a passenger bus near the Jabi-bar area, ordering all of the passengers to disembark before the militants began profiling them to identify non-Muslims.
While speaking with ICC, a Mandera security officer confirmed, “The attackers were looking for non-local passengers traveling from Nairobi in order to kill them. The current trend of terror activity in Mandera confirms that. They abducted the only Christian on the bus, the mechanic, and allowed the others to continue with their journey.”
While Kenyan forces pursue the attackers, the status of the abducted Christian remains unknown.
During the second attack, which took place an hour later in the same location, two non-local medical transporters were killed and their truck was burned. They were ferrying pharmaceutical drugs to Mandera, traversing the violence-prone region near the porous Kenya-Somalia border. In a statement, the governor of Mandera said, “Later on the same spot, a truck carrying KEMSA drugs was stopped. The driver and turn boy who are both non-locals were taken away. It was later reported that the lorry has been burnt down to ashes.”
The security officer confirmed to ICC that the “two non-locals, [the] driver and his assistant, had been killed by shooting and their bodies [were] dumped on the roadside.”