Kenya to relocate non-Muslims after deadly attacks

The Kenyan government has derived plans to have 370
non Muslims seeking refuge at the Mandera military camp
moved without conceding the calls for evacuation.
The move follows two attacks by militants in the past two
weeks over a Nairobi-bound bus, in which they brutally
killed 28 non Muslims and the massacre of 36 quarry
workers in Mandera.
Mandera County Commissioner Alex Ole Nkoyo
confirmed on Saturday that plans were underway to
facilitate the transportation of 370 people, stating that all
the quarry workers had already been mobilized and
assembled at the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) camp.
“We are currently having 370 people at the military camp
and we are not evacuating them. We are only facilitating
those who want to go home and we are talking to the bus
owners in this town to see if we can get up to five and
we give them police escort along the way,” Nkoyo said.
Reports from the border town said all ground transport
and three civilian flights that depart weekly from Mandera
are fully booked.
Some trade unions, including those of teachers and medical
workers, were advised to leave the area. Those at the
base are in fact mainly teachers, health workers,
construction workers and other civil servants.
However, the government said besides improving the key
roads in Mandera, the KDF and the police were to
provide escort for travelers along the dangerous borderline
route.
The dilapidated main Mandera-Garissa road has forced
motorists to use the road near the Somali border,
exposing them to frequent terror attacks in which many
have died.
“The government has decided to move these people because
the situation has not calmed and the ongoing meeting is to
see how we are going to have them transported to Nairobi
by road,” said one of the sources who attended the
Friday meeting in Mandera.
He said security teams had spent the better part of on
Friday going round all quarries and moving the workers
out for safety considering the recent happenings in which 36
people were killed by suspected Al-Shabaab militia.
“We have gone round areas bordering Somali where
their stone quarries and fished out all workers because
their security is at stake,” Nkoyo said.
“We are talking to the business community to lend us buses
to be used and its not that the government is paying the bus
fares but only sourcing the buses to be used by those who
want to travel, ” said Nkoyo.
He said all was well at the KDF camp as the soldiers
provided food and water except that there was no enough
bedding.
“We are yet to meet all the quarry owners and plan on
how to safeguard these workers in future just like in
South Africa where miners sleep in protected areas and
go to work in the morning,” said Nkoyo.
At the KDF camp, Julius Gathu blamed the government
for abandoning them and appealed to their families back at
home to be calm for they were safe.
“We are safe here except that the government is not being
honesty with its plans to have us moved from here,” said
Gathu, a construction worker now at the military camp.
He said nobody from the government has talked to them
but only hearing that 13,400 U.S. dollars has been send in
to help them get out of Mandera “but no one is telling us
anything.”
Gathu said most at the camp wanted to be with their
families back at home and those who had lost their brothers
were to go and burry them.