Gunmen raid Malaba shops, rob millions of shillings

Gunmen Saturday night raided several wholesale shops and money changer booths and robbed millions of shillings.
The armed thugs reportedly stormed the shops and the shop owners to surrender all the money they had in possession.
The action that reportedly occurred at around 7:30pm and last about two minutes caught business communities unaware as that’s the time they usually balance their books.
Those who were robbed claimed that the thugs had a green polythene bag where they would order them to put the money.
It's said they first stormed wholesale shop belonging to Mr Jude Obore pretending to be customers before placing him at gunpoint and ordering him to surrender all the money he had.
They later stormed a money changer booth belonging to Mr Moses Angaret and robbed him of an unspecified amount of money before raiding another wholesale shop and mobile money shop along Customs Road.
Mr Denis Emudut, a money changer, who was also raided told this publication that the thugs came pretending that they wanted to cross to the neighbouring but before he could attend to them he was already being placed under gunpoint and ordered to surrender the money.
"I have lost all my capital but I suspect these thugs were well coordinated because most of us were preparing to leave since the police had alerted people of the planned operation following the Friday incident where a policeman was robbed of his gun," he said.
"I am sure that those thugs can be traced since the robberies took place within the circumference of the CCTV cameras," he added as tears rolled down his cheeks.
Eye witnesses who preferred anonymity said thugs later fled the scene with their loot while firing bullets in the air to scare the mob that had come to lynch them.
The robbery occurred a day after machete-wielding men attacked a police officer attached to Malaba police station, disarmed him and escaped with his SMG gun.
The Bukedi South regional police spokesperson, Mr Johnson Moses Mugwe, confirmed the robbery and revealed that the police has initiated the investigations on to the aggravated robbery.
He appealed to members of public to cooperate with the police by volunteering information that can lead to tracing of the suspects.
“It's alleged that the two unidentified male thugs dressed in civilian attire and armed with a gun stormed several shops and robbed unspecified amount of money and that immediately after the attack, the victim alarmed for help which attracted the public, that the attackers discharged bullets to scare the crowd. However, we have initiated investigations into the aggravated robbery under case CRB108/2023" he said