GARISSA (Xinhua) — Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said Saturday that northeast Kenya’s Garissa University College…
GARISSA (Xinhua) — Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said Saturday that northeast Kenya’s Garissa University College which was attacked by terrorists in April, will be reopened in two weeks.
“The government will finance the completion of ongoing projects at the university including a police post to ensure there is a conducive and peaceful environment for the students when they resume studies,” Ruto said during a visit to the Garissa County.
He said Garissa University College is part of the infrastructural educational development that is needed in this country.
“It must be reopened to enable students concentrate on their studies to achieve their goals in life,” added the deputy president.
Gunmen with Somali militant group ‘al-Shabaab’ stormed the college in April, leaving 148 people, including 142 students, dead, making it one of the deadliest attack by the militants.
The northeast region has been bearing the brunt of insecurity since Kenya took its troops to Somalia to fight the Al-Shabaab group in 2011.
Ruto said peace has been declared in northern Kenya, which had been hard hit by insecurity occasioned by terrorists’ related activities in the recent past.
“We are not going to cede any part of Kenya to any group.
“We will defend any inch or portion of our country,” said Ruto, adding that elaborate security measures have been put in place to contain terrorism among other criminal activities along the country’s porous order with Somalia.
He said the move by leaders and residents to work closely with security agencies in the search for peace in the region has yielded fruits.
He said security was a collective responsibility where all Kenyans, irrespective of their status in the society, must come together and speak with one voice in the war against acts of lawlessness.