Italian woman kidnapped in Kenya
Gunfire wounds several at coastal trading center
NAIROBI, Kenya — Gunmen firing indiscriminately into a coastal trading center kidnapped an Italian woman and wounded several other people in the first kidnapping of a foreigner in Kenya in several years, authorities and witnesses said Wednesday.
Silvia Costanza Romano, a 23-yearold volunteer working with Kenyan students, begged for help before she was taken away by the attackers who stormed the Chakama trading center on the coastal county of Kilifi on Tuesday, police and witnesses said.
Five people were wounded in the attack, including three children, said Kenya’s police chief, Joseph Boinnet. The motive for the abduction isn’t clear, and the identity of the attackers is not yet known, he said.
Romano had been working for the Italian-based humanitarian group Africa Milele, according to Boinnet and Italy’s foreign ministry.
The gunmen came looking for a white woman, according to Ronald Kazungu Ngala, 19, who said he witnessed Romano’s violent kidnapping. Ngala’s high school education is being sponsored by Africa Milele, and he had gone to the NGO’S offices to present his report card to Romano, he said.
He heard gunfire, which prompted all the shops in the area to close and many people in the trading center to hide. Six men, some armed with guns and others with machetes and clubs stormed into the Milele offices and demanded to know where is the “mgeni” (Swahili for visitor).
“I told them she had left to go and get a power bank, but they didn’t believe me and surged into the room where they found her,” he said.
Ngala said he followed them and heard one gunman ask the other if she is the one, and when he was told she was, he proceeded to “slap her very hard until she fell.”
Ngala said the gunmen took Romano across the Galana River.
Somali-based Islamic extremists have been blamed in the past for a spate of kidnappings of foreigners along Kenya’s coast. Kenya said it was prompted to send troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight al-shabab militants after the kidnappings of four foreigners.