Al-Shabaab abducts Kenyan doctor in Mandera near Somalia border

NAIROBI, Kenya - Al-Shabaab militants have reportedly abducted a Kenyan doctor in the northeastern county of Mandera, the third to be kidnapped in as many years by the group, which controls large swathes of rural central and southern Somalia.

Security teams launched a rescue mission on Saturday after the militants picked the doctor in Fino, a few kilometers from Mandera town which borders Somalia. The doctor is said to have been taken across the border to Somalia.

Police said the four militants who were armed with guns, picked the doctor and two locals from Fino Health Center before going to Somalia. The doctor, police said, is not a local thus the possible reason for the abduction.

The two locals were later released before the militants and the doctor passed through the Kenya-Somalia border, police said, in what could lead to a major operation within the area.

Police suspect the abductors, thought to be members of the Al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group are in possession of medical equipment and medicine. At times, they abduct doctors to help with matters medication in areas they control.

In 2019, Al-Shabaab abducted two Cuban doctors working in Mandera before releasing them months later following negotiations which were led by local elders. The doctors were identified as Assel Herrera and Landy Rodriguez and were part of a 100-member Cuban team that had come to Kenya for work under an agreement between the two countries.

Their driver, one Robow, was accused of setting them to the militants, leading to his subsequent prosecution. Robow who was driving the car in which the doctors were traveling, was charged with terrorism for alleged complicity in the kidnapping of the medics.

Robow faced five counts including the commissioning of a terrorist act, kidnapping, and hostage-taking, aiding and abetting a terrorist act, and obtaining Kenyan registration by false pretense. He denied all the charges.

On Wednesday, February 16, Nairobi principal magistrate Martha Nanzushi ruled that Robow was guilty of kidnapping the medics and aiding a terrorist act.

She said the prosecution did not prove Robow was a Somali national as had been earlier claimed. "I find the accused guilty on counts one, two, three, and four as charged. No sufficient evidence adduced to this court in respect to count five,” the magistrate said.

GAROWE ONLINE