Somalis in Kenya Face Xenophobia

[RAJ PATEL JR]

Somalis in Kenya living in fear of xenophobic attacks as Kenyan troops battle Somali militants

By Associated Press, Published: November 11


NAIROBI, Kenya - The streets of Nairobi's Somali community are no longer congested. A once-bustling trade in cheap imports is quiet, and the nightlife is almost dead. Many Somalis are staying inside out of fear of xenophobic attacks and police arrests.
Kenyan troops last month moved into southern Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabab militants. Those militants, in return, threatened to retaliate with large-scale terror attacks in Nairobi. Ethnic Somalis - many of them Kenyan citizens - who live in Nairobi feel caught in the middle.
"There is that feeling of fear. There is fear of an outbreak of xenophobia if a large-scale event takes place, so we are like this - maybe the lull before the storm," said Salah Abdi Sheikh, a Kenyan-Somali who wrote a book on the 1984 massacre of possibly thousands of Somali men by Kenyan government troops.


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[Chamoto]

It's sad but that's normal! I'd be scared of Mungiki too if I look like Somalis, you know, the same thing happened to arabs/pakistanis in the US right after Sept 11 attacks.

 

[Bantugbro]

This is ridiculous, The Kenyan government is using the media to miss-inform the public and fuel all of this chaos. First of all the guy who has been tossing hand grenades around Nairobi is a Kenyan of non-Somali origin, secondly the allegedly kidnappings have been perpetrated to westerners (tourists) and not to ordinary Kenyans...

 

[kshaka]

This is ridiculous, The Kenyan government is using the media to miss-inform the public and fuel all of this chaos. First of all the guy who has been tossing hand grenades around Nairobi is a Kenyan of non-Somali origin, secondly the allegedly kidnappings have been perpetrated to westerners (tourists) and not to ordinary Kenyans...

Dude, if you only depend on the western news agency for your news you'd think this as they seem to regard Africans as being barely human. Point in case, when they reported that two NGO workers (Spanish nurses) had been kidnapped, it was actually four NGO workers that had been kidnapped but the two others were Kenyan so western press only reported that "two people" had been kidnapped. In addition, a Kenyan was also killed in that incident. You can see the details here. In addition to the above, there were also two policemen who were kidnapped a few months before that and there have been dozens of incursions and killings of Kenyans by Al-Shabab over the last couple of years.

FYI, as much as people like you want it to happen there really is no "chaos" in Nairobi or attacks against Somalis because of this operation. It only exists in the feverish imagination of western journalists.

 

[RAJ PATEL JR]

Dude, if you only depend on the western news agency for your news you'd think this as they seem to regard Africans as being barely human. Point in case, when they reported that two NGO workers (Spanish nurses) had been kidnapped, it was actually four NGO workers that had been kidnapped but the two others were Kenyan so western press only reported that "two people" had been kidnapped. In addition, a Kenyan was also killed in that incident. You can see the details here. In addition to the above, there were also two policemen who were kidnapped a few months before that and there have been dozens of incursions and killings of Kenyans by Al-Shabab over the last couple of years.

FYI, as much as people like you want it to happen there really is no "chaos" in Nairobi or attacks against Somalis because of this operation. It only exists in the feverish imagination of western journalists.

Let's hope it won't happen. Let's love one another