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Shooting in Kenya's Mpeketoni

July 6, 2014

Shooting has been reported in Kenya's coastal district of Lamu. It is the same area where dozens were killed last month in violence blamed on Islamic insurgents from Somalia.

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Image: Reuters

The Kenya National Disaster Operation Center (NDOC) said on its Twitter feed that the gunfire broke out in the trading center of Hindi late Saturday near the town of Mpeketoni.

The NDOC said that local authorities and police were responding and that the "location has been secured."

The Kenyan Red Cross said it had dispatched its emergency teams to the area and said no casualties had been reported.

Mpeketoni is the same coastal area where about 65 people were killed in two attacks last month. The violence was initially blamed on al-Shabab insurgents from neighboring Somalia, which has carried out a series of attacks in neighboring Kenya.

Survivors of the Mpeketoni attacks reported that the gunmen involved had been speaking Somali and carrying al Shabab flags.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, however, denied that al-Shabab were involved and instead blamed "local political networks" along with an "opportunist network of other criminal gangs." The governor of the county, Issa Timamy, was arrested in connection with the killings.

hc/jm (AFP, Reuters)