Police escape landmine attack in Daadab

KBC
Wednesday, June 27, 2012

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Police patrolling a refugee camp in Dadaab narrowly escaped death Tuesday when an Improvised Electronic Device (IED) exploded a few seconds before their vehicle reached the spot.

The device which was planted right in the middle of the road in IFO 2 refugee camp was targeting the police vehicle and its occupants.

Confirming the incident, Dadaab Deputy OCPD Nelson Taliti said the six officers on board were not hit by the explosion which detonated just before their GK vehicle reached the site where the gadget had been planted.

Taliti said police officers highly suspect that following the incident, people around the scene could have been injured and some damage caused to the surrounding buildings.

The OCPD said that police are following crucial leads that would lead to the apprehension of the culprits behind the attack.

Police in Dadaab have in the recent past been targets of terrorists who are suspected to be sympathizers of the Al Shabaab militia group.

On Saturday two police officers were seriously injured while on duty in Mandera. Police have since blamed Al Shabaab sympathizers for the attack.

In December last year, a policeman was killed by a land mine and two others critically wounded. Two more people died in a grenade attack in Garissa, shortly after a U.N. aid convoy struck a landmine which failed to detonate in Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp in northern Kenya.

During the same month, police on patrol in Dadaab Ifo refugee camp survived a remote controlled land mine after the explosive was detonated before the ‘target' reached the site.

Dadaab is home to nearly half a million refugees, mainly Somalis fleeing their country's 20-year-old civil war.

Kenya has been hit by more than a dozen grenade attacks and land mine explosions after sending its forces into Somalia in October to battle al-Qaida-linked militants whom it blames for a wave kidnappings and cross-border raids.

Aid agencies say the Dadaab bombings have severely limited their movement and are preventing refugees from getting services.

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