Two Relatives of US Diplomat Killed In Kenya

Image of car at link. Said to be a car jacking - with AK-47's and the car had diplomatic plates.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Gunmen carjacked a U.S. Embassy vehicle on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital Saturday afternoon and killed two female relatives of an embassy employee, officials said. Police later killed two people involved in the carjacking.
The victims were the wife and mother-in-law of a U.S. Embassy employee, embassy spokesman Robert Kerr said, without providing further details.

"This a horrible event," he said. "These were people who loved Kenya."

The gunmen "ordered the two women out but they hesitated," said Isaiah Osugo, a criminal investigations officer in Nairobi. "Then they were shot."

Kenyan police later killed two people involved in the carjackings, police spokesman Gideon Kibunja said. He could not immediately provide more details.

Officials withheld the women's names.

Francis Munyambu, Nairobi's deputy provisional police officer, said the carjackers escaped with the embassy vehicle and were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Earlier in the day, the men had carjacked Michael Madine along the same road, according to police and Madine. Madine spoke to The Associated Press at the scene after being interviewed by police.

"Four men with AK-47s carjacked me," he said in Swahili. He said one of the carjackers stayed in the car with him while the others attacked the embassy vehicle.

"I heard one of the women screaming and then I heard three gunshots," Madine said. The carjackers then fled, he said.

The shooting happened just off a highway in Kinoo, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside Nairobi. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw two pools of blood on the roadside.

Shortly after Munyambu's news conference, two men who identified themselves only as officials from the U.S. Embassy ordered reporters to leave the scene and took journalists' pictures, threatening to ban them from the embassy.

Carjackings are common in and around Nairobi, but Saturday's attack was unusually brazen because it took place during the day. In September, the chief U.S. military attache was shot and seriously wounded in a carjacking in Nairobi. Russia's ambassador was stabbed in a robbery on Aug. 20. A month earlier, a Danish diplomat was attacked and robbed.

Kenya's government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said officials believe Saturday's violence was "a random attack." He did not provide further details.

Comments

[John H. Costello]

This does not necessarilly have anything to do with international politics or the women being in a US embassy car. Kenya has an incredible crime rate and has had it for years. I was there in 1980 and 1985 and continually heard stories about murders and rapes and 'raiders' both times. In 1978 raiders hit a group of archeology students, severed one man's clavicle with a machete, raped two women, and stole everything of value they could. Most homes inside Nairobi that could afford it were fortresses. If the women were 'europeans', that is, white, they would have been seen as rich pickings. See the latest issue of Smithsonian for what is going on, or Google "Njoya Cholmondely" for other online sources.

[Northerner]

Reading terrorism into this Dan? Sometimes I wonder if you've ever been to underdeveloped countries. Yes, this happens there, not only to Americans, and what do you think diplomatic plates mean to a desperate carthief? Exactly, nothing at all. They probably had no idea (nor would have cared)what diplomatic plates look like, that the occupants were American, or even what the US is. All they saw (as John Costello explains above) were white people in a (probably) expensive car in a neighbourhood where they had no business being. In other words, rich targets.

[Dan West]

What none of you know and what everyone is trying to hide is that the older woman and her husband had been missionaries in Kartoum Sudan for 30 years. They recently retired to the states and advocate for the atrocities in Sudan.

They loved the people of Sudan and Africa. We can analyze, rationalize every bit of information. What it comes down to is that they were bringing peace and love to people. She always spread the word of Christ Jesus and his love for the whole world.

[Northerner]

@Dan West:

Given the "holier than thou" attitude of most missionaries bringing yet another religion to people who have other priorities (like finding enough food to feed themselves and their families), I fail to see why missionaries are always put on a pedestal by some people. They try to impose their way of life on a people that do not wish to change their religion.
And why should they? One religion is as good as another, after all they are all fantasies made up to explain things that people couldn't understand for themselves. The more we understand about nature, the less we need religion to explain certain things to us. Good riddance I say, religion has brought much more sorrow to this world than any other human phenomenon.

[azzasaleh]

are they a us or canadian citizens? are they coloured?