By Cyrus Ombati

NAIROBI, KENYA: Police are investigating an incident in which a Chinese national was Wednesday night shot dead in a robbery incident in Lavington area, Nairobi.

The middle aged businessman was shot at close range in the neck and robbed of more than Sh100,000 and other valuables.

The victim was walking on Riara Road from a restaurant in the area when he was attacked by three men who wanted cash and other valuables from him.

According to Dagoretti OCPD Mathews Gwiyo, the attackers seem to have trailed the victim before they struck.

“They first tried to mug him but he resisted before one of them shot him in the neck at close range and later grabbed the cash and other valuables and escaped on foot,” said Gwiyo.

The body was discovered in the area moments later before it was moved to the mortuary and no arrest has been made so far.

Police said on Thursday that they are pursuing the killers. Cases of armed robbery are on the rise in Nairobi and police are grappling on how they can handle them.

Elsewhere, three motorists were separately robbed of their motor vehicles in attacks in Nairobi. The first incident happened in Kasarani area, the second one in Starehe and the other one in Kilimani area.

Police say they are yet to recover the stolen vehicles and that the gunmen escaped with them in the separate attacks.

And a suspected thug was Tuesday night lynched in a botched robbery in Nairobi’s Mukuru slums.  

The man was in the company of three others and had been attacking and robbing locals when an alarm was raised. He was lynched by an angry mob before police were called to take the body to the mortuary. 

Elsewhere a suspected thug was shot dead and a pistol recovered from him in Nairobi’s Mathare area in the war on crime.  

The man was in the company of three others and had robbed a pedestrian of her valuables when an alarm was raised alerting police who were on patrol, said Kibui.  

The officers responded and managed to kill one recovering the pistol. The body was later taken to the mortuary. Cases of gun robberies are on the rise and police are struggling to contain them.