Two police reservists killed in IED explosion at the Kenya-Somalia border in Mandera
FILE IMAGE OF POLICE LINE
At least two members of Kenya’s National Police Reserve were killed in an explosion at the border point in Mandera.
The incident happened at the Kenya-Somalia border at Point Four’s Kulun are at about 6 pm on Wednesday January 14, 2026.
The scene borders the Bullahawa of Somalia.
Police said the NPR officers were on duty at the scene when the explosion went off.
It is believed the explosion was set up by members of the Somalia National Army who are operating in the area out of retaliation to a similar incident where their members were killed last year, officials said.
On Wednesday, police said the NPR were on duty at the site when the Improvised Explosive Device went off.
It killed NPR corporal Mohamed Issack and constable NPR Abdirashid Shabbellow.
Two others were injured and rushed to the hospital in critical condition, police said.
A team of experts who visited the scene said the IED was planted at the place where the NPR operate and that a destroyed mobile phone was recovered at the scene. It had a Somalia simcard and is being analyzed for more information.
The scene was cleared and the bodies subjected to an autopsy before they were released to the families for burial, police said.
Police most of the time use NPRs to patrol the area near the border. They are trained before being armed and deployed.
The area has been experiencing instability from infighting between the Somalia security agencies and al Shabaab terror group.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since the 1991 overthrow of President Siad Barre’s military regime, which ushered in more than two decades of anarchy and conflict in a country deeply divided along clan lines.
Kenya launched Operation Linda Nchi on October 14, 2011, after gunmen seized tourists at the Coast, which the Government saw as a threat to the country’s sovereignty, as it targeted the nation’s economic lifeline-Tourism.
The latest IGAD analysis of the threat of terrorism in the Horn of Africa region, Kenya faced heightened vulnerability to cross-border spillovers from neighbouring conflict zones between July and September, a challenge now extending to the last quarter of the year.