Bandits held for tourist attack
2005-08-25 10:50
Nairobi - Kenyan police said on Thursday they had arrested two people in connection with a brazen armed attack on a group of Japanese, South African and United States tourists in the country's famed Maasai Mara game reserve this week.
Transmara chief police commander Kalicha Roba said the suspects - one of whom was detained immediately after the attack on Monday and the other on Wednesday - would appear in a court on Thursday to be charged.
"We have arrested two people who will appear before a Narok court this afternoon," he said by telephone from Kilgoris, the Transmara district headquarters about 220km west of the capital Nairobi.
"The suspects will be charged with robbery," Roba said, adding that police had recovered items stolen from the tourists including a video camera, three pairs of binoculars, camping equipment, mosquito repellent, a thermos and towels.
Police still looking for more suspects
The suspects are alleged to have been part of a seven-member gang that ambushed two safari vans carrying five Japanese, two South African and two US tourists in the western part of the Maasai Mara National Reserve on Monday evening as they returned to their lodges from a late-afternoon game drive.
Two of the Japanese were wounded, one with a serious hand injury, while the others were robbed and terrorised during the ordeal in which they were threatened with a rifle, clubs and knives, police said.
Roba said police were still tracking down the rest of the bandits and searching for the missing stolen property, which included cash, cameras, passports and other personal effects.
The sprawling Maasai Mara, which stretches across Kenya's southwestern border with Tanzania, is world famous for the annual migration of wildebeest - a mainstay of Kenya's tourism industry.