Air operation launched as hunt for police vehicle attackers intensify

Police have launched an air operation in an intensified hunt for attackers who sprayed bullets on a police vehicle, killing a school teacher and wounding two officers.

The assailants shot at a police Land Cruiser ferrying police officers and civilians along the Napeitom-Lokori road in Turkana East on Wednesday.

Turkana County Police Commander Samuel Ndanyi said a team of General Service Unit (GSU), Regular Police, Administration Police (AP) and Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU) was deployed to the area last evening to track down the attackers suspected to be bandits from a neighbouring county.

Mr Ndanyi confirmed that the injured officers were on Wednesday evening airlifted to a Nairobi hospital for specialist treatment.

He said the police vehicle was ferrying five officers and five civilians at the time of the incident, adding that a police chopper was deployed from Nairobi in an enhanced search for the suspects believed to be hiding in thickets near the scene of the attack.

The commander said the officers based at the Napeitom AP post had offered the civilians a lift.

“We suspect that the attackers are bandits who might have been in the area to steal livestock and thought they were being pursued by the AP officers and that is why they laid an ambush,” Ndanyi said.

He said the slain teacher worked in a school in Napeitom area and was heading to Lokori trading centre, which is the headquarters of Turkana East sub-county.

The four civilians who survived the shooting did not sustain injuries.