• Northeastern regional commissioner Nicodemus Ndalana said that the militants waited for the Moyale Raha bus at a bend and ordered the driver to stop.
• Ndalana said that when the driver refused to stop, the militants chased it using three motorbikes and shot at the bus indiscriminately.
Suspected al Shabaab militants on Wednesday afternoon attacked a Nairobi bound bus near Quba area in Banisa, Mandera county and killed three passengers.
Northeastern regional commissioner Nicodemus Ndalana said that the militants waited for the Moyale Raha bus at a bend and ordered the driver to stop.
Ndalana said that when the driver refused to stop, the militants chased it using three motorbikes and shot at the bus indiscriminately.
They managed to deflate the tyres before ordering all passengers to alight.
They then separated locals from residents of other regions.
“It is at this point that they shot dead two non-locals. The third passenger, a local, died from excessive bleeding following injuries he had sustained,” Ndalana said.
The administrator said that police from the nearby Bania police station responded immediately.
“Officers drawn from the military and the other officers are already at the scene. They are combing the thicket where the militants are believed to be hiding,” he said.
Ndalana said they have closed all the militants' escape routes as they enhance the search.
It is still not clear why the buses plying the terror-prone route travel without a security escort, despite a directive to do so.
In December last year eight non-locals were killed by the militants between Kotulo and Wargadud.
The then regional commissioner Mohamed Birik directed the Garissa, Wajir and Mandera security and intelligence committees to ensure that buses have a police escort.
Birik said that said all drivers must comply with the directive to guarantee the safety of travellers on Garissa-Holugho, Garissa-Liboi and Garissa-Wajir roads.
Since January, the militants have enhanced their attacks in the Northeastern region.
The insecurity has affected key sectors among them education, where teachers who hail from other parts of the country were transferred by their employer.