Blasts heard near Dadaab refugee camp airstrip

BY ADOW JUBAT

Garissa, Kenya: Two powerful explosives rocked the Dadaab airstrip, Garissa County in North-eastern region on Thursday, sending shivers on the spine of the residents scarred by fatalities of similar explosions.

Confirming the incident, the Dadaab district commander in charge of operation Galicha Roba said the explosions, which happened on a space difference of 30 minutes caused extensive damage to the main gate of the airstrip.

He said nobody was hurt in the explosions suspected to be hand grenades hurled from a close range by suspected sympathizers of Al-Qaeda inspired Somali Islamist group, Al-Shabaab.

“We are luck that the attacks occurred at night, when the airstrip is rarely used or bustling with human activities. We have cordon off the area as we investigate what actually happened and whether there are more unexploded explosive devices around the airstrip” he said.

The police boss said that they have invited explosive experts from Garissa and Nairobi to investigate and establish, the type of explosion hurled at the airstrip and whether there are more such explosive devices planted within or near the airstrip.

The attacked airstrip is usually very busy with both humanitarian and private flights daylong and it could have be extremely disastrous were the explosion to happen at day time an officials police source, who can’t be named since he isn’t authorities to speak to the press said.

Non essential humanitarian aid operations were suspended in the sprawling refugee camps in the area as the matter is been probe by the security officials and ballistic experts.

A UN official who declined to named said ”We have briefly suspended all humanitarian operations, which are not emergency at moment through a resolution reached in a inter-agencies security deliberations this morning, following the unfortunate incident of last night”

Dadaab, which has been an epicenter of numerous similar deadly past explosive attacks, has been enjoy some sense of normalcy for the last couples of months.

Explosive attacks has become almost acceptably new form of criminal activities in Kenya since the country sent its military force to liberate southern Somalia from the grips of the dreaded Al-Shabaab militia, who are blamed to be the proxy of Al-Qaeda ,international terrorist organization.