Three miners were killed by suspected insurgents based in Somalia, Al-Shabaab, on Thursday evening in a quarry in Shimbir Fatuma, Elwak, Mandera County.

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Confirming the gruesome incident, a Mandera government official has said that two others were also fatally injured in the attack.

“The incident happened at an area called Shimbir Fatuma which is about 65 kilometres from the insecure Kenya-Somalia border and that miners have been staying in the quarries,” the government official said.

The quarry workers had earlier declined the government's directive to abandon the area on insecurity grounds, and now the government apportions blames squarely on the quarry workers for their defiant stand.

Stone mining has attracted many job seekers from other parts of Kenya to Mandera due to lucrative pay.

But the miners are constantly at the risk of unprecedented attacks from the Somalia-based Al-Shabaab insurgents.