Kenyan police say unidentified gunmen kidnapped an Italian volunteer working at a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in a trading centre attack where five people were wounded in the region of Kilifi on Tuesday.
“The gang … abducted an Italian lady aged 23 years who is a volunteer of Africa Milele Onlus, an NGO operating in the area,” the National Police Service said on Twitter.
According to the police, the wounded were taken to hospital and officers were pursuing the attackers.
The police did not say if the gunmen were suspect militants from al-Shabaab, an Islamist group based in neighbouring Somalia, which has launched deadly attacks in Kenya for years.
This includes the 2013 attack on a shopping mall in the capital, Nairobi, in which nearly 70 people were killed.
Suspected al-Shabaab militants have launched several attacks in recent months in which Kenyan soldiers have been killed, however those attacks have all taken place in Lamu County, which is north of Kilifi and borders Somalia.
