Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta along with his Vice William Ruto met a group of Somali Community members from the Eastleigh neighborhood to discuss on the growing insecurity in the East African nation.
The meeting which took place on Friday at the State house in the capital, Nairobi was mainly focusing on dealing with the threat of sporadic terror attacks in the country.
Somali community mostly comprising of Businessmen and Religious leaders passed a number of complaints and harassment Somalis leaving in Eastleigh area face during police raids, which result from attacks.
Kenyan leader, Uhuru Kenyatta said that they reached an agreement whereby the Somali community will give hand the Kenyan government on combating ‘’terrorism’’ and confronting individuals involved in ”criminal activities”.
‘’The Government has entered into a pact with the Kenyan Somali community, that will see the community play an active role in combating terrorism threats to the country. Terrorism targeting innocent Kenyans must stop and we have therefore agreed that the top leadership of our security organs will start working with a task force involving businessmen, youth, women and religious leaders from the Kenyan Somali community, that will be instrumental in identifying those involved in criminal activities,’’ he said in a Statement published on his Facebook account.
Eastleigh, which is famously known as ‘’little Mogadishu’’ because It is dominated by ethnic Somalis has shopping malls and other business centers which make an estimated $7 million (more than half a billion Kenyan shillings) a year.
The meeting came days after the Kenyan government ordered all Somali refugees living in urban areas to go back to their camps due to ‘’emergency security challenges’’.
Delivering his speech in the Parliament, President Kenyatta said tourism sector is on ”its knees”, after strings of attacks across the country in which some of them was claimed by the Somali militant group al-Shabab.
Tourism contributes massively to the economy of Kenya.
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