Suspected Al Shabaab kidnap teacher from Hagadera refugee camp

Aerial view of Hagadera refugee camp in Garissa County.

A Kenyan was on Monday morning kidnapped by people suspected to be members of Al-Shabaab militia in the sprawling Hagadera refugee camp in Dadaab, Garissa County.

Dadaab OCPD Raphael Kimilu said the teacher working with Windle Trust was snatched from Hagadera refugee camp by the armed men who had concealed their faces.

The OCPD said security personnel were dispatched to the area to pursue the captors who were believed to be heading toward the porous Somali-Kenya near the border.

The kidnapped teacher was identified as Judy Mutua.

Sources within the Aid agencies working in the expansive Dadaab refugee camps said an NGO vehicle on its way to Hagdera refugee camp was shot at several times by unknown armed men at the junction between Hagadera and Dadaab.

The perpetrators reportedly took over the vehicle and drove it for a while before abandoning it on the way. The fate of the driver is still unknown.

An eyewitness who declined to be named said the attackers transferred the teacher to a waiting vehicle before driving off to unknown destination.

Following the incident, most of the NGOs operating in the refugee camps have halted their essential humanitarian operations except live saving programs such as food distribution and health.

On April 2^nd, militants raided Garissa University College in Garissa town and killed more than 140 Kenyans, majority of them students.

Refugee camps have been accused of harbouring the militants whom the Kenya government has blamed for most of terror attacks targeting innocent Kenyans in northeastern region of being orchestrated in the refugees’ camps.