Robbers shoot M-Pesa agent dead, steal cash

Two robbers shot dead an M-Pesa operator in Pipeline Estate, Nairobi, on Tuesday and escaped with an unknown amount of money.

The two, according to traders in the area, entered the shop at 7.30pm posing as customers and found Dorcas Kilonzo, 21, serving a customer.

Once the customer was served and left, the thugs demanded money from the operator but she hesitated.

"They had a brief altercation before we heard gunshots,” said a businessman in a nearby shop.

He added that after the two gunshots, the robbers took the money and left.

The shopkeeper said traders went to the scene to find out what had happened only to find the victim lying on the floor with gunshot wounds in the neck and chest.

ANOTHER SHOOTING

Ms Kilonzo’s boss said he was called to his shop by another of his employees, who told him that there had been a robbery at the shop.

“When I arrived, I found the lady lying on the floor in a pool of blood and we took her to Landress Medical Centre and the doctors said that she had died.

"They said she had lost a lot of blood and that the bullet may have gone through her lungs,” said Phillip Mutua.

Police found two spent cartridges at the scene. They took the body to City Mortuary.

In another incident, a man walking along Waiyaki Way was shot in the head and shoulder. Good Samaritans rushed him to hospital in a serious condition. The motive of the shooting was yet to be established.

The attacks come just two days after President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that the rate of crime in the country, and specifically in Nairobi, had drastically gone down compared with the previous years.

He said the number of reported robberies fell from 436 in 2014 to 295 in 2016, while motor vehicle thefts fell from 340 to 195 in the same period.