Gunmen İnjure Unhcr Aid Worker İn Kenya

Unknown gunmen in northern Kenya opened fire on a vehicle of aid workers for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday, injuring one.



"I can confirm that this happened today at 8: 30 in the morning at [the] Hagadera Camp in Dadaab," UNHCR spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera told Anadolu Agency.



He said the Hagadera Camp was one of the many camps in northern Kenya's Dadaab refugee complex.



Nyabera confirmed that one aid worker, a Kenyan, had been injured in the attack.



"Only one person has been shot. As we speak, he is stable," he said. "Currently, he is in Dadaab, but we are planning to fly him to Nairobi."



The spokesman added that the vehicle used by the gunmen had since been found near the site of the attack, the motive for which remains unclear.



Earlier this month, two Kenyan aid workers finally returned home after being held captive for three years by Somalia's Al-Shabaab militant group.



Daniel Njuguna Wanyoike was kidnapped in Somalia in October of 2011; James Kiarie Gichuhi was seized in Kenya one month later.



It was only in February of this year that their fate became known, when Al-Shabaab commanders paraded them in a mosque in Barawe, an Al-Shabaab stronghold in southern Somalia.



Dadaab is believed to be the world's largest camp for displaced persons, with a current refugee population estimated at some 500,000.



Overall, Kenya shelters close to 800,000 refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.



Kenya has remained on high alert since last September's Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, in which 67 people were killed. That attack was claimed by Al-Shabaab.



Al-Shabaab has kidnapped numerous aid workers and tourists in Kenya, prompting the latter in 2011 to dispatch troops to Somalia in pursuit of the militant group.



By Magdalene Mukami



englishnews@aa.com.tr - Nayrobi