Tuesday, April 01, 2014
Kenyan doctors said on Tuesday they had removed a bullet from the brain of an infant boy shot in the head by gunmen in a recent attack on a church.
The fate of one-and-a-half-year-old Satrin Osinya, whose mother died trying to protect him when the attackers sprayed the church service with bullets last month, has gripped the east African nation.
"We were able to remove the bullet from where it was deeply lodged in the baby's head," said Gichuru Mwangi, head of neurosurgery in Nairobi's Kenyatta National Hospital. A team of five surgeons carried out the operation.
"The child is out of danger with no risks of future complications," said Mwangi.
Six died in the shooting near the port city of Mombasa on March 23, the latest in a string of attacks blamed on Islamist insurgents.
No group has claimed responsibility for the church shooting, but Kenya has been hit by a series of attacks since sending troops into southern Somalia in October 2011 to battle Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants.
Kenyan troops, which have since joined the African Union force in Somalia, are taking part in a fresh offensive launched this month against Shebab bases.
The attack on the church came six months after the Shebab carried out the September massacre in Nairobi's Westgate mall in which at least 67 people were killed.
More than 650 people were arrested on Tuesday following bomb attacks in Nairobi on Monday that killed six people.