Five elite squad police officers were killed by al-Shabaab terrorists in Boni Forest, in Lamu County, on Wednesday evening.
The militants are said to have ambushed the Special Operations Unit (SOU) officers as they pursued other suspects believed to be al-Shabaab operatives in the region.
The attack left another five officers from the unit with serious injuries. Sources indicated that some of the militants also sustained injuries during the encounter.
Al-Shabaab kills 5 officers in Lamu. Photo: Courtesy.
According to reports, the officers had spent two days inside the forest tracking the criminals.
This followed intelligence that the militants were planning to launch a large-scale ambush.
The injured officers were evacuated from the forest and flown to Nairobi for treatment.
Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen on Thursday visited the injured officers at Nairobi West Hospital, and condemned the attack.
Murkomen pledged the government’s commitment to cracking down on the assailants.
The CS further noted that a police officer who was injured during an anti-gang operation in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, was also receiving treatment at the same facility.
