Mandera,KENYA:A number of civilian casualties from a dawn attack in Bullahawa area of Somalia 4 kilometers from the Kenyan border have been evacuated to the Kenyan side of Mandera.
This is according to the Mandera county commissioner Fredrick Shishia who confirmed that the dawn attack by Alshabaab militants in the area bordering the Kenya – Somalia border did not spill over to Kenya.
“The reason we have allowed civilians to be evacuated to Kenya is because in Somalia there is no health facility nearby” Shishia told Baraka FM on phone.
Shishia however did not confirm the number of casualties that had been evacuated to the Kenyan side.
According Reuters Alshabaab had confirmed attacking the military base occupied by soldiers from the Somali National Army .
“First, a mujahid with a car bomb rammed into the military base and then we stormed it,” the Alshabaab spokesman, Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters agency
Abdullahi also told the publication that the militants had killed 24 soldiers in the attack while a Somali government official put the figure at 10.
However in past instances Alshabaab have always quoted a higher figure while government officials always tend to downplay with the figures.
Reports had earlier indicated that the attack had spilled over to Kenya with the militants exchanging gunfire with Kenyan police officers however Shishia refuted those reports saying that a tactic by the Somalia National Army to fight from the Kenyan side of the border had been mistaken to be a fight spillover.
“The attack was contained in Somalia, the 180 SNA soldiers that were seen in Kenya had used it as a tactic and Kenyan authorities were aware but the Soldiers have since gone back to Somalia” Shishia told Baraka FM on phone.
Al qaeda affiliated Alshabaab militants have launched hundreds of attacks in Somalia in a bid to impose their strict Sharia Law in the Horn of Africa country.
The militants have also launched attacks in Kenyan soil in a bid to pressurize the Kenyan government to withdraw its forces from Somalia.
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