Hooded gunmen killed about 16 people attending Sunday Mass in two churches in the Kenyan town of Garissa, a diocese led by a Maltese bishop.
About 40 were wounded, several in serious condition
Three Maltese members of the Church based in Garissa, all Franciscan Capuchins, were attending a meeting in the capital Nairobi at the time, said Fr Martin Micallef, a Franciscan priest based in Malta.
These were Franciscan Bishop Paul Darmanin, appointed bishop of Garissa in 1984, newly appointed Co-adjudicating Bishop Joseph Alessandro and Brother John Cassar, who has been carrying out missionary work in the area for more than two decades.
Fr Micallef said that after hearing about the attacks on the news he sent the three Maltese Franciscan Capuchins a text message and was reassured they were fine.
The BBC quoted regional deputy police chief Philip Ndolo saying that balaclava-clad “goons” attacked the town’s Catholic church and the African Inland Church.
A combination of grenades and gunfire was used and 16 people died. About 40 were thought to be wounded, several in serious condition.
Garissa is the capital of the North Eastern province, about 140 kilometres from the Somali border. The situation there has been tense since Kenya sent troops into Somalia to pursue al-Shabab Islamic militants.
Kenya had said the operations, launched last October, were designed to bring an end to kidnappings on Kenyan soil and other violence, which it blamed on al-Shabab. Since then, al-Shabab has been blamed for a further string of grenade and bomb blasts across Kenya, though it never admitted to carrying out any such attack on Kenyan territory, according to the BBC.
Co-adjudicating Bishop Joseph Alessandro, who was only recently nominated for the post, is the third Maltese Capuchin bishop in Kenya, following Mgr Paul Darmanin and Mgr Emanuel Barbara.
He was born in Paola on November 30, 1944 and joined the Capuchin friars in September 1962. In Malta, he has taught religion and lectured theology while serving on the diocesan film censorship board.