This archive report was first published on 7 January 2020.
On Sunday, January 5, 2020, Al Shabaab terrorists launched a daring attack on the Camp Simba military base in Manda Bay, Lamu County, killing at least one Kenyan.
A man named Mwalimu Chengo Ponda was shot six times by the gunmen, about six kilometres from Manda Airstrip, according to the Washington Post published on January 7, 2020.
According to Ponda's neighbour Suluba Kazungu, who was allegedly on a palm tree when he saw his neighbour being killed, 'I heard my neighbour scream. There were at least 10 armed men. I can assure you they were not the military. It was my neighbour's bad luck that he came into the path of these men.'
The government has acknowledged that a Kenyan died in the attack, with police visiting the home and recovering spent cartridges from the shooting.
Lamu County Commissioner Irungu Macharia confirmed that a man had died in Lamu and that at least 10 terrorists were at large.
However, this contradicts statements from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and the Interior Ministry, which have maintained that no lives were lost in the attack.
On Monday, Interior CS Fred Matiang'i told journalists that no Kenyan lost their lives during the attack and that none of the terrorists left the airstrip alive.
But according to the Washington Post, the attack lasted for more than nine hours, and the United States Africa Command (Africom) confirmed that three US Citizens, including one soldier and two contractors, died during the attack.
