While a ransom was paid to Al-Shabaab, the militant group may not have been aid worker Sylvia Aisha Romano original captors in Malindi two years ago. Reports have suggested that Kenya Wildlife Service personnel were arrested in their connection with the abduction and that they hid the aid worker in the vast and dense Boni forest near the Somali border. From there she may have been sold on to Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab has had a presence in the forest in northern Kenya since at least 2014. Other reports quoted police as saying the aid worker was involved in illegal ivory trafficking. KWS has been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings in Tana River area, not far from Malindi, where Ms. Romano was kidnapped.
