NAIROBI, KENYA – It is nearly noon on a Sunday in Lavington, a wealthy Nairobi suburb with palatial homes. Many families approach the Nakumatt Junction mall for brunch after Sunday worship services.
Traffic is heavy approaching the mall, which is unusual for a Sunday. Some inconvenienced motorists turn back. Others opt to use alternative entrances to the mall, investigating if they are less congested.
“Why the heavy traffic today?” asks June Wambua, 38, a single mother of two.
Dressed in blue sports gear from her weekly morning jog, the petite and light-skinned Wambua drives past the mall. Looking closely, she sees there are heavily armed security personnel at the gate, checking each car before permitting its entry.
This has become the new norm in every public facility in Nairobi, the capital, since Kenya declared war on al-Shabab, a militant group in neighboring Somalia, in October after numerous kidnappings and attacks.
Two hundred meters from the mall, police are on foot patrol in the road. The scene is the same throughout the surrounding suburbs.
Like many fellow Kenyans, Wambua says she is on high alert. But she says she believes that it’s about time that Kenya went to war.
“Kenya has been the safe haven for warring neighbors for far too long,” she says.
Kenya’s war with al-Shabab, a branch of al-Qaida in Somalia, has worsened the crisis following famine and drought in the Horn of Africa by causing humanitarian organizations to evacuate aid workers from refugee camps for safety purposes. Business has also been slow, especially during periods after security alerts. While some say it’s about time Kenya went to war and are confident in the conflict’s resolution, others say they are scared and paranoid and fear life will never be the same.
Kenya declared war against al-Shabab in October to protect its borders after multiple kidnappings on Kenyan soil. British, French and Spanish citizens were among those kidnapped from Kenya by al-Shabab forces. There were also grenade attacks and bombings in Nairobi and in areas of the country bordering Somalia.
This month, al-Shabab released a video declaring war on Kenya. The group claimed responsibility for an attack last week in northeastern Kenya in which more than five died and several were kidnapped.
Together, conflict in Somalia and the drought and famine crisis that settled into the Horn of Africa last year have affected more than 13 million people in the region, according to the World Food Programme, a U.N. humanitarian agency that has been implementing food operations in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Uganda.
Conflict in Somalia has worsened the drought and famine crisis in the region, according to the United Nations. The refugee camps along Kenya’s border with Somalia have been particularly hard hit by the war with al-Shabab.
CARE, an international nongovernmental organization, operates three refugee camps in Dadaab, located in northeastern Kenya. The camps receive some 1,300 refugees a day, the majority from Somalia because of the insecurity there, according to CARE. There are nearly 400,000 displaced people living in the camps, which have the capacity to hold only 90,000.
Wambua says she has a friend who was interviewing a few months ago to work at a refugee camp in Dadaab for Oxfam International, one of the many other humanitarian organizations that have been providing aid in the Horn of Africa since the drought.
“She was called for an interview with Oxfam as an aid worker mostly in the arid north, where the Dadaab camp is located,” she says.
But she says that her friend has not heard from the organization since. She says that al-Shabab attacks have caused such organizations to evacuate their aid workers from the area, even though people are still in desperate need of assistance.
“I consoled her that the job may be irrelevant due to the high security threats that are ongoing in Kenya and with several attempts by al-Shabaab terror group to destroy the lives of innocent civilians,” Wambua says. “Working in the refugee camps would be a quick way to the grave.”
Josie Wambui, 41, has worked for various international nongovernmental organizations as a security and humanitarian crisis aid worker at camps across the region for more than two decades. She was recently working for one of these organizations but was evacuated because of the current security situation.
“The humanitarian world also is in frenzy, and many have had to evacuate their staff from the camps, leaving only a skeleton one to dish out water and food to the refugees,” she says. “Other relief services, including provision of medical care, counseling and trainings, are not so important now. Safety comes first.”
She says that donors and workers alike are unsure how to provide aid without endangering workers’ lives in light of the conflict.
“Donors are stressed out too, wanting solutions to the interruptions of aid in the region,” she says. “They are seeking coping strategies, with many aid workers scratching their heads for solutions.”
She says that Kenya is no longer a safe haven for refugees.
“International organizations in turn are panicking because Kenya, a nation that was once a safe haven for refugees from Somalia, among other conflict areas in the region, is not safe anymore,” she says. “Many refugees have had to be driven back and restricted from entry into the refugee camps because some turned out to be members of the terror group al-Shabaab, having kidnapped and possibly murdered a French tourist from one of the camps in the past months.”
She says she has also been on edge since Kenya went to war with al-Shabab.
“As an aid worker, one has to be alert at all times because danger can befall you at any time,” she says. “Since Kenya went to war, I’m on such high alert and always expecting the worst. A tire burst now sounds more like a bomb or grenade from an al-Shabab member or sympathizer.”
A married mother of two, she says that she hopes her children’s boarding school closes so they can come home to Nairobi and she can be sure of their safety.
“I want my kids to close school,” she says. “They are in boarding school.”
Still, she says she does not feel much safer at home.
“I am afraid to shop during rush hour these days,” she says. “Maybe I could try mornings, when there are few buyers. This is all out of fear of an imminent attack, where I would be able to rush out to safety.”
Supermarkets, malls and public transport are under tight security, as Wambua observed during her Sunday morning drive. Many say the al-Shabab are hunting white foreigners from North America, Europe and Australia in places in Kenya that are popular for tourists.
Kenyan Police issued a security alert in November after two grenade explosions warning citizens to beware and avoid crowded areas, such as malls.
“Be alert, vigilant and security conscious at all times and everywhere as [al-Shabab] insurgents have lately warned of reprisal attacks in Nairobi and other parts of the country to protest Kenya’s military offensive targeting them in lawless Somalia,” the alert advised.
Imma Kamau, 34, a local store owner at Nakumatt Junction says the shops have received less customers since the declaration of war, especially in the two weeks following Kenya’s war declaration.
“Business has been slow since Kenya went into war,” she says.
She says that other malls have also been less crowded.
“It’s the same story at Nakumatt Westgate, and whites are no longer free to frequent the malls as they did before the war,” she says. “And some of my white friends and neighbors are staying indoors out of fear and when out shopping are always in a hurry to return to their homes. I bet that many of them are not frequenting safaris, as they are known to. Bad luck for the tourist industry!”
Kamau says she is not typically afraid of people dressed in Muslim attire or of Arab descent who come into the store. She says that it’s important not to fuel stereotypes.
“A black man was last week found to be a member of the al-Shabab and several arms and hand grenades recovered from his house,” she says. “He wasn’t an Arab, as one would think. The man [was] of the Kamba tribe but converted to a Muslim a few year[s] back, after which he was trained by the terror group. At this rate, we cannot pinpoint a terrorist just by looking at their dress, color of their skin or texture of hair.”
The person was arrested, convicted and jailed in a record of less than a fortnight, which is rare in Kenya, where most court cases drag on for years.
Shirley Munene, 27, a cashier at Power Innovations, a store at the mall that sells bulbs, lamps and chandeliers, says that business has been slow here too since Kenya went to war.
“Business is slowly picking up following a dry spell,” she says.
Although business has improved since the initial war declaration, people go on high alert and avoid crowded areas when government agencies and the United Nations issue security alerts, such as one on Jan. 10.
Munene says she worries a culture of fear will settle into Kenya as happened in the United States in 2001 following Sept. 11.
“I am so afraid that just like the U.S. citizens do, Kenyans will never again have sound sleep,” she says. “They will keep looking over their shoulder from now on because of the declaration of war against the extremist group.”
Security guards say that heightening security in public places is necessary because one cannot tell when or where someone will strike.
“None declares war against terrorists and has it easy,” says Jacob Ouma, 30, a security agent from the Kibera slum. “Kenyans, having declared war against the terrorists, are afraid that the extremists may be calculative, attacking when our security forces have dropped their guard. They are having to avoid crowded places, such as malls and pubs, following grenade attacks, which have left several dead and many more injured.”
The matatu industry, a popularly used form of public transport in Kenya, is also on high alert, says Kamau Mbuthia, 25, a matatu tout.
“Today and when one Arab lady alighted, the driver instructed the tout to check under her seat whether she had left some bomb or hand grenade,” he says with a sigh. “We are all paranoid! None of us are safe, and I wonder whether our internal security is tight enough to deal with the aftereffects of the war.”
Wambua says she believes that all will be well in due time, though one can’t be sure when that will be.
“We cannot be sure of when this war will end,” she says. “Kenyan troops have sworn to continue until they are successful in their quest.”
Regional forces have been pressuring al-Shabab on various fronts, with Kenyan forces to the south, Ethiopian troops to the west and Uganda, Burundian and African Union troops in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.
“Our army has hardly had a war, despite having been trained in combat for ages and yet lacking the opportunity to practice their skills,” Wambua says. “It’s about time that our army arises to the occasion to serve our country.”