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Two American soldiers killed in Manda terror attack identified

By Amina Wako January 7th, 2020 2 min read

Henry Mayfield Jr, a US Army Specialist from Chicago, has been identified as one of the three Americans who lost their lives on Sunday morning in an attack by suspected Al Shabaab militants at a military base in Manda Bay, Lamu County.

His family revealed that military officials had reached out to them to convey the heartbreaking news of the death in the attack that also claimed the lives of two Defense Department contractors, according to CBS Chicago.

Carmoneta Horton-Mayfield, mother to the deceased soldier, also wrote a post thanking everyone for reaching out to her and her husband about their loss asking them to continue praying for her family.

“Thank you to all that have reached out to my husband and I with your touching words regarding the loss of our son Army Specialist Henry Mayfield Jr. We may not be able to respond to them all at this but we feel the love and we appreciate you all. Please keep our family in prayer. ??????,” Carmoneta posted on Facebook.

The mother told CBS that they spoke last on New Year’s Day via FaceTime.

“We discussed him not having to go to Somalia and he told me everything was good and safe at his base,” she added.

The 23-year-old joined the armed forces in June of 2018 after studying at Northern Illinois University.

The other American soldier has been identified as military contractor Dustin Harrison from Gilbert, Arizona.

His wife, Hope Harrison, confirmed to CNN that the pilot for the contracting firm L3 Technologies, had been in a two-month rotation at the Kenya Defense Force Military Base in Manda Bay.

Dustin was scheduled to return to the US in less than a week, according to his wife.

It is with great sadness today that I share about the loss of one of our Lifeguard-3 family and former pilots Dustin…

Posted by Steve Kramer on Monday, January 6, 2020

One other American was killed during Sunday’s terror attack by al Shabaab militants on a military base in Lamu, the US military has said.

Confirming the incident, the US military’s Africa Command (Africom) also said two other Americans who work for the US Department of Defense were wounded in the attack on the Manda Bay Airfield.