A USA friend sent me this message and pictures from one of his Kenyan friends in Mombassa describing the chaos over there. I've deleted names in the message.
Here is an article from the Christian Science Monitor.
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Saturday, 5 January 2008
Mombassa, Kenya
What do you do when the lines reach 300 people in front you and you don’t know if you are going to get into the grocery store? My friend XXXX and I had been to several stores and we could not find milk, bread, and many other basic things in any store. The petrol stations where closed for 3 days because there was no fuel. Thieves came to the house next door a few days ago but the guard happen to see them before they broke in and sounded the alarm. Riot police are surrounding the police station a block from our house to protect some of the people inside.
The Bible speaks that there is going to come a day when a man will work all day for a loaf of bread. What do you do when you have money and there is no bread to buy? We have heard of these kind of things happening in other countries of Africa but never before like this in Kenya.
On Wednesday I was able to buy a few hundred dollars' worth of maize and flour after begging and pleading that this is for people who do not have anything. Yesterday, we moved early before the demonstration rally to some areas that people are really hurting. We only had problems on the Malindi Road near Kisanuni when the people started motioning for us to turn around so we did. We found out later that the people were rioting and police shot and killed one person. We were able to go around the problem through Nyali and on out to Bamburi where we found the pastor on his knees praying in the church. The presbyters were able to get the food to other pastors and friends. They were so thankful for the little we could bring. I have received several SMS's of thanks from Maritini, Bakoli, Likoni. Some do not have anything in the house. Shops have been closed and no bread, milk, cooking oil, kerosene, available. We were able to beg at one petrol station to get enough diesel to keep going.
Today the planned demonstrations failed in Nairobi and Mombassa after the police moved in with tear gas. Again I went to buy what we could this morning and took supplies to the church in Kisauni. Next I went by the house of a Muslim friend and give him some maize. We also took charcoal that had cost three times the normal price.
One Muslim friend who lives across and near the Likoni ferry told me he was up all night protecting his property. There is a bar (owned by a Kikuyu man) next door to his house and the people came to burn it three separate times. They had to be alert because the fire would spread even to their house.
As we were leaving the house yesterday morning a Baptist pastor came to the gate and said we lost everything last night and we don’t have any food or anything. He said they even stole our mattress. We were glad we had just been able to get some food and clothes to help him a little.
Another man who works for me at times called and said they did not have anything in the house so we were able to help him also. He said that they had organized the men in his area to protect the property with bows and arrows and pangas. They told the police to please stay out we will not kill the thieves but will bring them to the police station. The night before the looters had broken into many of the shops and took everything. Another Kikuyu friend who had a hardware shop lost everything and all his welding equipment.
Please pray for peace to return to Kenya.
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"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." -- Matthew 5:9
Kenya survived the Post Election Violence in 2007/08. As a Kenyan, I believe we learned from the unfortunate events. The ICC cases also were the best to happen to Kenya and the world over. This is because violence perpetrators will think twice before they plan violence in the future.
Posted by: Ben | Saturday, 01 July 2017 at 03:12 AM