At least 18 people have been killed in new attacks in Kenya's coastal county of Lamu, the same area where 60 people were massacred last month, the Kenyan Red Cross has said.
A spokesman for Somalia's al-Shabaab rebels claimed the al-Qaida-linked group's fighters had carried out another attack in the area.The Red Cross said nine people died and one person was missing around Gamba, while four people were killed in Hindi, a trading post near Lamu island. The attacks took place late on Saturday, authorities said.
"We had attacks at night where people were killed and houses destroyed. We have mobilised our officers and we are on the ground. We are calling on the public to work closely with us," said Robert Kitur, a senior Lamu police official.
Police said unidentified gunmen also torched several houses and attacked Gamba's police station, freeing a suspect held in connection with last month's attacks. One policeman was among the dead, officials said.
An AFP reporter in Hindi said all of the dead in the town were men, apart from a teenage boy reportedly shot as he tried to run away.
The attackers also left messages scribbled in English and Swahili on a blackboard taken from a school. "You invade Muslim country and you want to stay in peace," one message read.
Resident Elizabeth Opindo said she spoke to the attackers, who set fire to her home but left her alive, saying they did not kill women. She said there were about 10 attackers, speaking a mix of English, Swahili and Somali, all common Kenyan languages.
"They said they were attacking because Muslims' lands were being taken," she told AFP.
In a statement issued hours after the violence, Somalia's al-Shabaab rebels said they were responsible.
"The attackers came back home safely to their base," al-Shabaab's military spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab said, adding that the militants had killed 10 people.
The organisation also claimed responsibility for last month's attack at Mpeketoni, saying it was in retaliation for Kenya's military presence in Somalia as part of the African Union force supporting the country's fragile and internationally backed government.
Survivors of the massacre in Mpeketoni and a similar attack the following night in a nearby village reported how gunmen speaking Somali and carrying al-Shabaab flags killed non-Muslims and said their actions were revenge for Kenya's presence in Somalia.
The Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, however, denied al-Shabaab were involved and instead blamed "local political networks" and criminal gangs, and said the victims had been singled out because of their ethnicity.
The attackers appeared to have targeted Mpeketoni because the town is a mainly Christian settlement in the Muslim-majority coastal region, having been settled decades ago by the Kikuyu people from central Kenya, the same tribe as Kenyatta.
Police also arrested alleged separatists from the Mombasa Republican Council, a group that campaigns for independence of the coastal region, as well as the governor of Lamu county, who is an opposition politician.
The unrest in the coastal region has badly dented Kenya's tourist industry – a key foreign currency earner and massive employer for the country – at one of its traditionally busiest times of the year.
Lamu island is a well-known tourist destination whose ancient architecture is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site.
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