Gunmen attack Kenyan church, kill 6

March 25, 2014

Gunmen entered a Protestant church in Likoni, a municipality in southeastern Kenya, and killed six worshippers.

Some news agencies reported that the Somali Islamist terrorist organization Al-Shabaab is suspected in the attack. The local Catholic bishop offered his own hypothesis.

The area “is considered the stronghold of an Islamist movement of secession,” Bishop Emanuel Barbara of Malindi told the Fides news agency. “These groups even threaten the local imam, accused of being moderate.”

“It is believed that these groups are funded by some [local] businessmen,” he added. “The majority of the members of these groups are young people from Somalia, but there are also local youth who shoot and kill just for money, not because they are religious fanatics.”

 

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Further information:

• Gunmen kill six in attack on Kenyan church (Reuters)
• Kenya: six dead in attack on church near Mombasa (Christian Solidarity Worldwide)
• The fundamentalists that strike Christians also threaten the local Imam", said the apostolic administrator of Mombasa (Fides)