Five quarry workers were killed and two others seriously injured on Tuesday morning in a suspected Al-Shabaab attack in Mandera County, near the Kenya–Somalia border.
The incident occurred at around 6:00 a.m. in Bor Abor village, Mandera East, when armed militants ambushed a minibus transporting the workers to a nearby quarry site. According to a preliminary police report, about ten attackers forced the vehicle to stop before ordering the passengers to step out.
The gunmen allegedly demanded the workers surrender their mobile phones and identification documents before opening fire on them as they lay on the ground.
Security officials said 13 workers managed to escape into nearby thickets and were later rescued by responding authorities. Police officers who arrived at the scene reported footprints leading toward the Somalia border, raising suspicion that the attackers fled across the frontier.
There was no immediate response from national police spokespersons, though security agencies have launched a manhunt for the assailants.
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked extremist group based in Somalia, has carried out repeated cross-border attacks in Kenya, frequently targeting non-local quarry workers, security patrols, and public transport vehicles in the northeastern region.
Investigations into the latest attack are ongoing.