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At least seven people have been killed in a roadside blast in northern Kenya.

Attackers ambushed a minibus, locally known as a matatu, after the blast and opened fire on its occupants near Mandera town, a police statement said.

Survivors were taken to hospital with various injuries, as the attackers fled the scene, the police said.

Mandera is one of the most dangerous areas in Kenya, due to the Islamist militant group al-Shabab, based across the border in Somalia.

Hospital authorities say they are treating 13 people, including a three-year-old infant.

A spokesman for the national police, Bruno Shioso, said a force was despatched to engage with the attackers who appear to have fled towards the Somali border.

No group has yet claimed responsibility, but al-Shabab has mounted numerous attacks on Kenya over the past decade.

This attack follows recent warnings made by the French and US diplomatic missions to Nairobi that the risk of militant attacks was rising, a threat the Kenyan authorities were keen to downplay.