Locals are fleeing the district of Likoni after recent massacres, and the promise of more to follow. Chris McGreal reports from Mombasa, Kenya
If the Kenyan government is to be believed, a group of marauding drug addicts and drunks has raided a police station, driven 100 000 people from their homes and throttled foreign tourism to Mombasas pristine beaches.
Many of the victims of the recent violence, plus President Daniel arap Mois opponents and the clergy see it differently. Amid growing suspicions that hit squads are being trained near Mombasa, they accuse the administration of precipitating chaos ahead of this years presidential and parliamentary elections, with attacks reminiscent of the ethnic killings which claimed more than 1 000 lives across Kenya before the previous ballot five years ago.
The latest violence has centred on Likoni, a Mombasa district settled largely by people from other parts of the country. The bloodshed began with a raid on the local police station last month in which seven policemen were killed and 44 guns stolen. They are presumed to be the weapons used in a spate of killings that has claimed more than 50 lives in attacks on up-country Kenyans.
The raids have taken on religious and ethnic tones fuelled by resentment at exploitation of local peoples by outsiders and international tourism. Most of Likonis native residents are Digo and Muslim. Those from other parts are invariably Christian. Up-country Kenyans also gave the opposition an electoral victory in the port city in 1992, and many believe they have been driven out for that reason.
Among the favourite targets for attack are bars and clubs. On September 5, a gang hacked six Kenyans to death including a child aged two in a bar at the gates of a tourist hotel.
Likonis streets are almost deserted. All but a few businesses are closed. On the wall of a paint shop is the ominous graffiti: Three days to go or you die. It is repeated several times along the main road. Tens of thousands of people have heeded the warning, packing the ferry to Mombasa and buses to the interior.
More than 2 000 residents have sought shelter in Likonis Catholic church, including Emilia who lived in a room with her four children until the attacks started. Three weeks ago a gang of men came to the house waving guns, machetes, axes and sticks.
They started to beat me. We were crying, we were shouting. Nobody came to help, she said. The gang looted the house and left, but worse was to come.
Men went to my brothers place around midnight. They took him to the lake. There were bodies there. They told my brother he was going to sleep with the dead. He dived into the lake and stayed there all night. When he escaped and went to the police, they told him they didnt have any radios and couldnt help.
Emilias brother disappeared for days until he was found sleeping in a tree, afraid to come down. Emilia said he lost his mind and was sent home.
Im ready to leave too. If I had the money I would go, she said.
After the raid on the police station, the government twice set deadlines for the surrender of the stolen weapons. While it failed to persuade the attackers to give up their guns, the deadlines sent a new wave of fear through Likoni, provoking another exodus among residents who feared the dreaded paramilitary General Service Unit would use the hunt for the weapons to launch a round of rapes and beatings.
There is growing evidence that far from being a random group of thugs, the attackers are a trained militia.
Some in the gangs have called themselves the Kaya Bombo (after a forest where local people say they have witnessed groups of young men being given weapons training). There are reports of similar activities around the Similani caves.
Mombasas archbishop, John Njenga, compared the attacks in Likoni to the wave of politically motivated ethnic violence that claimed hundreds of lives in the Rift Valley before the last polls.
I think it is political, he said. I am not saying the government is definitely involved, but I am not exonerating the government. The government has to provide security.
Deputy provincial commissioner Hassan Haji is dismissive. These attackers are criminals. If it was political it would have targeted only one group. It is erroneous to say theyve only targeted up- country people. Local people have died too, he said.
We dont know what triggered it; its too premature to say.
Hundreds of people have already been arrested for the attacks, including prominent local activists with Mois party. But it has done nothing to deter further killings.
Moi visited the area to deny his party had any hand in the violence. He retains, however, an acute political interest in Likoni, where in 1992 the up-country residents provided the winning margin for the oppositions defeat of a government MP.
There is more at stake for Moi this time. He must win at least 25% of the vote in five provinces to avoid a run-off that would almost certainly cost him power. The coastal region will be crucial.
The tens of thousands of voters forced out of Likoni have effectively been eradicated from the ballot, because they have left their registered constituency.
As the raids continue, even Likonis Catholic church proved unsafe. Two weeks ago, about 25 gunmen attacked the refugees.
Charles Okelo was in the church grounds. Some wore police hats and fatigue jackets, he said. They walked along the street and everybody thought they were police until they got to the gate. Then they opened fire.
Two people were killed before the attackers were fought off by policemen guarding the church. But it does not make the refugees any less suspicious of the authorities.
The attackers were well-organised because some went to burn bars, some came here and some went shooting about 200m from here, Okelo said. They split themselves into groups during their operations and nobody stopped them. Why?