Kenya restaurant attack - 4 dead
2013-01-17 08:30
Nairobi - At least four people were killed and six seriously wounded when gunmen attacked a hotel restaurant in Garissa, an eastern Kenyan town bordering Somalia on Wednesday evening, a local official said.
"Four people died on the spot, while six others were rushed to hospital," Garissa County Commissionner Mohamed Maalim told AFP.
"The attackers stormed the restaurant where patrons were having dinner or chatting and opened fire indiscriminately and then ran away," he added.
A motive and the identity the attackers was not immediately known, he said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a police officer in Garissa said five people had died in the attack.
"Gunmen just shot inside the hotel and fled," the officer said.
Kenya has been hit by a wave of grenade and gun attacks, often blamed on sympathisers of Somalia's Shabaab Islamist fighters, since its army went into Somalia last year to flush out the Shabaab.
But the Shabaab has never claimed responsibility for these attacks.
Garissa has been one of the flashpoints since Kenya's army entered Somalia.
Five police were killed in Garissa in November: two officers shot down while on patrol and three others killed by gunshots a few days later while changing a flat tyre on their vehicle.
Early January, four people, including three police officers, were wounded when a grenade was hurled at a police vehicle.
- SAPA
