FRIDAY, 5.00PM
ARMED raiders attacked 4 000 displaced Kenyans in a church compound overnight, killing at least three of them and sending the others fleeing. The latest attack brings the confirmed death toll in violence on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast to 43 since August 13.
Many of the inland tribespeople who had sought sanctuary in the Likoni Roman Catholic church just south of Mombasa had fled there after their houses were burned down, according to the priest in charge, Father Pio.
It was not clear on Friday morning where the refugees from Thursday night’s attack had gone. Last week, Brigadier Sam Swero of the Kenya navy gave the displaced people until Thursday to vacate the church camp or be forced out, but Mombasa Archbishop John Njenga had insisted they stay put until the violence around the city was contained.
The attack came amid continuing mass arrests in and around the resort city of Mombasa. Police said on Thursday that they had arrested 410 people, and that 108 of them had appeared in court to face charges related to the violence.
Those charged include the chairman of the unregistered National African Democratic Union, Ali Saidi Chidzondo, Islamic mosque imam Amiri Hamisi Ali Banda, and opposition activists Khelef Khalifa and Professor Al-Amin Mazrui.
Meanwhile, two leading activists of the ruling Kanya African National Union, Emmanuel Karissa Maitha and Omar Masumbuko, who were arrested after being implicated in the violence by attackers who had been arrested, have yet to appear in court.
President Daniel arap Moi has been implying that opposition forces are behind the violence, while the opposition is blaming the government for fomenting ethnic violence to ensure it wins the next election.
On Thursday, the opposition went further when it implicated Moi’s closest confidant, minister of state in the office of the president Nicholas Biwott, and influential politician and business tycoon Rashid Sajjad, of bankrolling the Mombasa violence.