Scottish Catholic Observer

The Vatican has condemned the ‘unspeakable’ attacks against Christian churches in Kenya on Sunday, which killed at least 17 people and left more than 60 others injured.

Sunday’s attacks, which involved a combination of grenades and gunfire, took place during morning sermons at two churches in the northern Kenyan town of Garissa, and included an attack on the town’s Catholic church.

Violence

Fr Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, described the weekend’s attacks as ‘horrible’ and ‘deeply worrying.’

“Violence against innocent people gathered peacefully in prayer is unspeakably vile,” Fr Lombardi said, before calling for solidarity with the victims of these and all such attacks. “Beyond our closeness to the victims, it is necessary to reaffirm and to steadfastly defend the religious liberty of Christians, and to oppose irresponsible acts that feed hatred among different religions.”

Fr Lombardi also called for renewed efforts to bring a lasting solution to the difficulties in Somalia, which are having regional repercussions.

Kenya’s border region has been tense since it sent troops into Somalia to pursue al-Shabab Islamic militants.

Kenya said the operations, launched last October, were designed to bring an end to kidnappings on Kenyan soil and other violence, which it blamed on al-Shabab.

But since then, al-Shabab has been blamed for a further string of grenade and bomb blasts across Kenya—though it has never admitted to carrying out any such attack on Kenyan territory.

Attacks

As the SCO went to press, no group had claimed responsibility for Sunday’s incidents, which national police spokesman, Eric Kiraithe, described as ‘the worst single attack since October, when our troops went into Somalia,’ but arrests had been made.

“It is the worst in terms of the numbers killed, the manner of execution, the anger behind it and the anguish it has aroused as well as the national impact it has had,” Mr Kiraithe said.

It has been reported from Garissa that attackers had hurled grenades into the Catholic church and the African Inland Church (AIC) and then opened fire with assault rifles.

The attacks were the latest on Christian worshippers in Kenya after two people were killed in grenade blasts in March and April in Nairobi and Mombasa.

Vice President of Kenya, Kalonzo Musyoka, condemned the Garissa attacks and said the country would not be intimidated by such ‘cowardly acts’ aimed at instilling fear.

The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims condemned the assault, saying ‘all places of worship must be respected.’

—[email protected]