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At least 11 Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers were killed when a vehicle they were travelling in was hit by an explosive in Girilley, Gedo, Somalia, on Monday afternoon.

Five other soldiers were injured in the incident when their lorry ran over an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by suspected Al Shabaab militants. 

The soldiers were attached to the African Mission in Somalia (Amisom) and were from the Kenya Army’s 15 Batallion Kenya Rifles, which is based in the outskirts of Mombasa.

Ultimate price

The attack happened when a convoy of lorries had drawn water from a point inside Kenya and was crossing the border back to Somalia.

According to the Department of Defence (DoD) headquarters, the incident happened at around 12.30pm when the team left Boji-Garas, about 30km inside Kenya.

“The incident happened between Girilley in Kenya and Girilley town in Somalia, which are about 10km apart,” a source told People Daily.

The impact was huge, going by the images of the affected lorry that was shared. The injured were airlifted to Nairobi for specialised treatment.

Two of the soldiers who were killed during the attack were identified as Johnson Olemoi Kiyiapi and Willy Sulubu.

Former Education Permanent Secretary and one time presidential candidate Prof James Kiyiapi, broke the sad news on his social media account, saying his late brother had paid the ultimate price defending his motherland.

“I am in shock and in mourning. My young brother Johnson Olemoi Kiyiapi was among other soldiers killed in Somalia yesterday, through an IED. They paid the ultimate price and no news item on who they are – they die incognito,” he wrote.

The militants have launched several attacks targeting the forces in the region in the past few years. On February 27, 2019, three Kenyan soldiers were killed in the Gedo region between Girilley and Fahfahdhun near the Kenyan border, when militants opened fire at them. An armoured personnel carrier was destroyed in the attack.

In the last two years, the KDF and other Amison forces have been facing a new challenge of the use of IEDs by the militants as a weapon of choice after the fighting capability of the militants was reduced.

The militants are now drawn from different locations and are fighting from unknown locations, with the attacks mostly aimed at soft targets.

The Amisom has been working on ways to reduce the availability of materials for making explosives in the region.

Reports indicate that since the terrorists do not have access to State munitions, they have resorted to IEDs which are cheaper and easier to manufacture. In the last few years, a number of IED-producing factories in Somalia have been demolished. The terrorists were initially fighting from set or known locations before they transformed to an insurgency.

Elsewhere in Mogadishu, the top Amisom and Federal Government of Somalia officials are meeting over the next five days to discuss modalities ahead of the new AU peace support operation in Somalia.

Effective April 1, Amisom which has operated in Somalia since 2007, will be replaced by a new mission to be called the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).

The Mogadishu conference seeks to agree on various approaches to aid the transition, as well as discuss operational plans for the new mission.

On the theme, “Joint Planning and Coordination for Effective and Timely Transition from AMISOM to ATMIS”, the meeting, which kicked off on Monday, has in attendance representatives from the Federal Government of Somalia, military commanders from the Somali National Army and Amisom as well as officials from the UN Support Office in Somalia and UN Mine Action Service