(Reuters) – Gunmen killed at least 13 people in raids on two separate areas on the Kenyan coast, the Red Cross said on Sunday. Four people lost their lives at the Hindi trading centre in Lamu county, near the scene of attacks in which 65 people were killed last month, the Red Cross said on Twitter.
Nine more people were killed in another attack in the Gamba area of Tana River county.
Officials said a group of 10-15 men struck at Hindi, situated 15 km (9 miles) from the town of Lamu, and close to the town of Mpeketoni, which was nearly destroyed in one of the attacks in June, at about 10 pm on Saturday.
“They went around shooting at people and villages indiscriminately,” Abdallah Shahasi, the area chief, told Reuters.
The Red Cross said three people were taken to hospital with injuries, from both areas, adding another one was reported missing in Gamba.
The Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab, which has carried out a series of attacks in neighbouring Kenya, said earlier it had staged an attack on Saturday evening in the coastal area.
The militants attacked the upscale Westgate shopping mall in the capital Nairobi last September, killing 67 people.
The wave of gun and grenade attacks along the coast and in Nairobi has hurt the tourism business, which is a key source of foreign exchange.
(Reporting by Joseph Akwiri and Duncan Miriri in Nairobi; Editing by Kim Coghill)
