By Moyiga Nduru
NAIROBI, Aug 20 1997 (IPS)

The orgy of violence that has swept through the Kenyan town of Mombasa since last week has now spread to other parts of the country’s Indian Ocean coast, prompting Western governments to warn their nationals against travelling to the area.

The unrest spread this week to Malindi, a popular holiday destination for tourists located some 120 kilometres north of Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city.

Local media reported here on Wednesday that two people were killed and more than 375 curio stalls were torched in Malindi by a gang of marauders said to be advocates of a federal system that would give the ‘indigenous’ people of the Coastal Province a greater say in running their affairs.

At least 40 people have been killed since the violence erupted on Aug. 13, after a group of people attacked the main police station at Likoni, a suburb of Mombasa, and the nearby Likoni ferry Tourist Police Unit, stealing 30 automatic guns and 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

In a statement made available to IPS on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department urged U.S. citizens to avoid travelling to the coastal province of Kenya, including Mombasa, which is around 500 kms southeast of here. “Travel to Mombasa and surrounding areas should be avoided until the situation has stabilised,” the statement said.

It also advised residents and visitors in the Mombasa area to take the highest security precautions possible. Italy and Germany have issued similar travel advisories to tourists already in Kenya, urging them not to travel at night, and to keep away from the troubled coastal area.

The unrest is likely to harm Kenya’s tourism industry, which is now recovering from years of depression.

Tourism is Kenya’s second foreign currency earner after agriculture, representing more than 10 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employing upwards of 350,000 people.

The government of President Daniel arap Moi and opposition leaders have continued to accuse one other of being behind the unrest.

On Tuesday, 15 opposition leaders signed a five-page statement condemning the “state-instigated ethnic clashes now rocking large areas of the Coast Province.” The statement, a copy of which was made available to IPS, claimed that “these clashes are but a beginning of large-scale disturbances like the ones that hit the Rift Valley and Western Provinces prior to the 1992 elections.”

“At that time the government dismissed those clashes as nothing but simple tribal differences between the Luos and Kalenjins (Moi’s ethnic group) residents on the farm” where the unrest began, the opposition leaders recalled.

“Though local people complained that there were plans to throw out one community from that farm, many Kenyans did not believe them. Kenyans naively appealed to Moi and the government to stop the clashes without any success,” ran the statement. “Just like today, Moi was silent as the clashes escalated. He did not talk about them until he realised that the clash victims had started fighting back.”

On Tuesday, Moi blamed the unrest in Mombasa and Malindi on tribalism which, he said, the opposition was fanning for selfish motives.

More than 2,000 persons have reportedly been displaced by the violence in the two towns which, according to unconfirmed sources, is aimed at non-indigenous Mombasa residents.

To ease the plight of the displaced, the opposition leaders have urged Kenyans to donate foodstuffs such as rice, maize, beans and cooking fat and take them to Christian centres in Mombasa where the displaced have sought refuge.

They also called upon local doctors and other medical personnel to help set up a temporary or mobile clinic to attend to the victims of the unrest. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Red Cresent, World Vision and other humanitarian organisations have also been urged to assist with medicines, tents and food.

While the politicians blame one another, civil society has been appealing for peace and calm on the coast.

Joyce Umbima, chair of the Kenya Alliance for Advancement of Children (KAACR), Wednesday urged the government and religious leaders to stop the bloodbath. “We know the government has the machinery to bring the killings to a stop with the support of the political and religious leaders,” she said.

“As a children’s agency, we know that the great sufferers of such killings are the helpless children who form a majority of the over 4,000 people who have taken refuge in Christian centres in Mombasa,” said Umbima.

She added that children could not enjoy their rights to life and survival, protection, development and participation enshrined in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, in such a tense environment of bloodshed.

“Exposing children to scenes of bloody killing of their parents and relatives does not only leave them as orphans but also causes irreparable pyschological damage,” Umbima said. “It is our prayer that the Coast situation does not degenerate to the clashes of 1992, which led to production of many street children whose impact we still feel.”

The disturbances in Mombasa and Malindi followed two demonstrations, on Jul. 7 and on Aug. 8, organised by opposition political parties demanding constitutional reforms ahead of general elections due in Kenya this year. More than 10 people were killed during the earlier unrest.

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