Shootout at Kenya Masai National Park

Kenya’s famous Masai Mara national park has for the first time experienced a shootout attack by armed raiders killing one man and injuring two.

Police spokesperson Eric Kiraithe has disclosed to German Press Agency dpa that a group of Kenyans where celebrating a birthday on the camp at the Western edge of Masai Mara national park but closer to the Tanzania’s Serengeti national park when they came under fire on Monday.

“The robbers took some things … and there was a shootout,” he said.

“Two were injured and unfortunately John (the man celebrating his 60th birthday) was shot and killed.”

Adding that incidences of banditry are frequent in the north and east of Kenya, but was the first the tourist site has suffered such an attack and security has now been beefed up to prevent any further occurrences.

“The security was already there, but we have become more cautious now,” Kiraithe said. “In the future we won’t allow people to go without security, especially those who are camping in open places.”

Witnesses suspect that the attackers were coming from the crossed borders of Tanzania since their dialect was quite different from Kenya’s Kiswahili.

Kenya’s tourism industry relies mainly on game parks and beach tourism for her major income though it is now picking up as a result of what has been described as deadly post-election violence in early 2008 and the global recession.