Kenyans in Russia are safe after the Metro terror attack that claimed 14 lives, Moscow has said in a letter addressed to Foreign Affairs PS Monica Juma.
An explosion in the St Petersburg metro system on Monday killed at least 10 people. The toll later rose to 14.
“We write to inform you that all Kenyans in the Russian Federation are safe. We have a good number of students in St Petersburg,”said Hillary Kyengo, Kenya’s charge d’affaires in Russia.
In a letter dated April 4, Kyengo said the country will mark three days of national mourning following the terror attack.
Foreign affairs CS Amina Mohammed sent a condolence message and pledged solidarity with Russia.
“Saddened by the blast that killed 10 people. We…pledge solidarity with the people and government of Russia,” she said on Twitter Tuesday.
The blast in the train carriage was carried out by a Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan, authorities from the predominantly Muslim central Asian state said on Tuesday.
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic of six million, is a close political ally of Moscow and hosts a Russian military airbase.
The explosion was a suspected suicide bombing by a perpetrator with ties to extremists, Russia’s Interfax news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying late on Monday.
A spokesman for the Kyrgyz GKNB security service identified the suspect as Akbarzhon Jalilov, born in the city of Osh in 1995, but provided no other details.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Russia has been on high alert against attacks on its soil in reprisal for its military intervention in Syria, where Moscow’s forces have been supporting troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Islamic State group has repeatedly threatened revenge attacks.
If it is confirmed that the bomber was linked to extremists, some sections of the Russian society could see it as proof that Moscow’s decision to intervene in Syria has made civilians into targets.
Late on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the site of the blast, which made a huge hole in the side of a carriage and blew of the door, with metal wreckage strewn across the platform.
Source link-the-star.co.ke
