Killing of Pakistani journalist in Kenya was ‘targeted’ attack, minister says
The murder of Pakistan journalist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, by Kenyan security officials, is a “targeted and very cruel killing” and was a “truly deplorable act”, said minister Nasser Khan Janjua.
The attack came as anti-Muslim sentiment in Africa has escalated in the past year, as terrorist attacks in Kenya have become commonplace.
At least 16 people were killed when a truck ploughed into a busy marketplace in Bisha, a Kenyan village in July.
In August, nine people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated himself outside the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.
One person died after a roadside bomb was detonated near the hotel in Kampala, Uganda in November. In March, a suicide bomber killed 37 people in a crowded nightclub in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the worst terrorist attack on Kenya.
In February, Kenyan police killed four gunmen who attacked a military base in Samburu County.
In September, a terrorist attacked a police checkpoint near the Israeli embassy in Nairobi. He wounded four policemen before he was shot.
Meanwhile, Kenya’s security services have taken a step towards deporting an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Somali refugees who are living in Kenya’s biggest refugee camp.
“They (refugees) live in shacks made of corrugated iron and plastic.
“They are begging. They are in a shanty town. The food supplies are going, but they don’t know that because they are all illiterate. They are like animals.
“We have been trying to make them get jobs, and that is just not working.
“The way the government is managing the problem, we are not really seeing them become independent from the refugees,” the minister said.
Last week, Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, said Kenya had only one year to contain its refugee crisis, as some 2.3 million Somalis are expected to leave
