Four people were arrested in the aftermath of an attack in which six people died and houses were burned in Lamu County, a coastal region of Kenya bordering Somalia, police said Tuesday (January 4th).
Read also Kenya: six dead in an attack in Lamu county, the shebab suspected
One man was beheaded and five were shot or burned in the attack in this very rural area, about 420 kilometers from the capital Nairobi. Lamu county, where the tourist island of the same name is located, has already been the scene of several attacks and local authorities first suspected the Shebab Islamist rebels on Monday, without then ruling out other avenues such as a conflict. land. The attack has not yet been claimed.
“
The investigation is progressing well and so far four people are in detention.
There will be other arrests
, ”national police spokesperson Bruno Shioso told AFP.
"
It has been established for the moment that the attack is linked to local conflicts over land
," he added, adding that such incidents are not uncommon in this region.
According to Bruno Shioso, the police are trying to establish whether another incident, which occurred Monday evening in a nearby area and on which he did not provide any details, was linked to the attack.
Read also Kenya: a police officer kills six people before taking his own life
In the first attack, which took place between Sunday evening and Monday morning, the attackers beheaded an elderly person, then looted his house, and shot dead another man whose body was found by the side of a road, according to police. . Further on, the bodies of four other men were found burned with their hands tied and could not be identified, according to a police report consulted by AFP. Houses were set on fire and cartridge cases found there, according to this report.
Since its military intervention in Somalia in 2011 to fight against the Shebab, Kenya has been the target of several deadly attacks, in particular those against the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi (September 2013: 67 dead) and against Garissa University (east , April 2015: 148 dead).
In January 2020, the Shebabs warned Kenya "
that it would never be safe
", threatening tourists and US interests.
Shebab fighters then stormed an American-Kenyan military base located on one of the islands of the Lamu archipelago, killing three Americans - one soldier and two Pentagon contractors - and destroying several planes.