Kenyan police arrested the leader of a coastal separatist group and shot dead two of his supporters in a dawn raid yesterday, part of an escalating crackdown on the movement that has threatened to disrupt next year’s election.
The Mombasa Republican Council’s (MRC) campaign for the secession of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastal strip, a tourist hotspot and trade hub, is just one of the concerns ahead of the March election – the first since the 2007 vote after which some 1,200 people were killed and thousands displaced in tribal violence.
Dozens of youths, armed with machetes and clubs, attempted to prevent police detaining MRC leader Omar Mwamnuadzi in Kwale, 20km south of the port city of Mombasa, and were also arrested, said provincial police chief Aggrey Adoli.