Non-Mandera residents flee homes, camp at KDF airstrip

Hundreds of non-locals working in Mandera have fled their homes and are camping at the Kenya Defense Forces airstrip demanding to be evacuated.

The residents spent Monday night at the airstrip and said they fear being attacked in their homes.

“We feel safe here than at the AP camp,” one of the workers said when the deputy County Commissioner, Mr Elvis Korir, tried to persuade them to move.

The teachers, health workers, construction workers and other civil servants said they feared for their lives following reports that Al-Shabaab informers had marked their houses with the intention of attacking them.

All public service vehicles and the three weekly flights from Mandera were fully booked.

Six unions have told their members to stay away from the areas suffering insecurity until the government guaranteed their safety.

The calls came after gunmen killed 28 people headed to Nairobi from Mandera on Saturday morning.

Twenty four of those killed in the Saturday attack were teachers, seven of them from the same school.

The other three were doctors and one a policeman. Of the teachers, 20 taught in private institutions, two in public high schools, one in primary and one in nursery school.

Source: Daily Nation