Displaying items by tag: Kenya

In India, a dust storm affecting three districts in Rajasthan state and Uttar Pradesh has killed 111 and injured hundreds more, with numbers still rising and more storms forecast. Electricity is disrupted, hundreds of trees uprooted, hundreds of houses damaged or destroyed, and livestock killed. Many of the dead were sleeping when their houses collapsed after being struck by intense bursts of lightning. Dust storms are common in this part of India during summer, but loss of life on this scale is rare. Pray for hospitals and emergency services without electricity. In Kenya, over 100 people died and 200,000+ have been displaced by four weeks of floods, landslides and heavy rains. The Red Cross described it as a humanitarian disaster. Severe weather hit central USA on 2 and 3 May, with unusually violent thunderstorms, tornadoes and tennis-ball-sized hailstones taking down trees and power lines. See

Last November Mr Kenyatta was officially inaugurated as president, but his victory was not recognised by Raila Odinga, who argues that Mr Kenyatta was elected by a small section of the country. On 31 January he declared himself the people's president, at a controversial swearing-in ceremony that the government warned is treason. Authorities shut down TV stations to prevent live coverage of the event. Holding a Bible in his right hand at a Nairobi park, he declared he was answering a ‘higher calling to assume the office of the people's president of the Republic of Kenya’. He said that people had had enough of election rigging, and the event is hoped to be a step towards establishing a proper democracy in the East African state. Mr Odinga turned up for twenty minutes, signed a statement, swore an oath, and left the low-key affair. His deputy, Kalonzo Musyoka, was not at the event.

Al-Shabaab fighters killed four Christian men in a village in Lamu county on 17 August. Three were hacked to death with machetes; the fourth was burned inside his home. Al-Shabaab surpasses Boko Haram as Africa's deadliest terror group. Christian pastors from the region revealed that the victims left the safety of camps to check on their homes and crops despite the warnings by Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s president. He had urged families to remain at displacement camps as the army attempts to eradicate the terrorist threat. The village chief admitted that the ‘desperation’ in the camps is making people return to their villages despite government orders. Christians in the camps are asking the global community to remember them in prayer. They need food, shelter, water, medicine, sanitary pads and soap.

A top Kenyan electoral official said the election commission's database was unsuccessfully targeted by a hacking attempt. Wafula Chebukati, the commission chairman’s comments came on the 10 August after allegations by opposition leader Raila Odinga that hackers infiltrated the database and manipulated results in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the election on 8 August. At the time of writing the tallying of the final results is continuing with Kenyatta holding a strong lead. Clashes between police and opposition supporters have erupted in several areas with people being shot and killed, following Odinga's allegations. In the port city of Kisumu, the hometown of Odinga, police used tear gas and shot at supporters of the opposition leader, said demonstrator Sebastian Omolo. Kisumu shopkeeper Festus Odhiambo said he was praying for peace even as protesters blocked roads into city slums with bonfires and boulders. Everyone is keeping an eye on what the opposition leaders will do if Kenyatta is declared the winner. See: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/kenya-police-protesters-clash-poll-fraud-claim-170809081850902.html

Praise God for the release of a new advocacy song by a Kenyan artist calling for an end to police abuse of power. The International Justice Mission (IJM) has been working with partners in the human rights community in Kenya to raise awareness of police abuse and create public demand for change. IJM hosted an event for the launch of the song, which was covered widely by local media and highlighted the need for radical transformation in the police service. Please pray that this support will continue to grow, and that we will see a response from Kenya’s leaders to bring this abuse to an end. Last year a television channel broadcast shocking images of police descending on protesters with water cannons, batons and tear gas, beating and bloodying people. Kenya's police chief called for internal investigations, but not much has changed. See

The food crisis in East Africa is escalating. Women and children are dying in South Sudan. The number of Kenyans needing emergency food has doubled in the past three months and could soon reach four million. Food prices are spiralling. Many people, weak with hunger, have to make long journeys just to find water. But the last months before the hoped-for harvest in June will be the hardest to bear. All food stocks were exhausted long ago. Most of the livestock are dead, and the crops are not yet fully grown. This is the period when people die. But a good harvest needs rainfall. The March-May rains in Kenya started late this year. In Uganda the rains started early but have been erratic - some areas getting too much and others too little. Mission agencies are giving support during this prolonged drought that has caused the death of livestock and people, but they need more help from the public as the crisis grows.

The Diocese of Chichester is sending an emergency grant of £5,000 to the drought-hit Kenyan diocese of Nakuru. The diocese, in partnership with the Anglican Church of Kenya’s Development Services, will buy and distribute foodstuff and other essential supplies in the worst-hit areas to avert a tragedy. The area is frequently affected by drought and has not received adequate rainfall for two years - leading to death, migration, conflict and inter-tribal wars. The situation worsened last October when they didn’t receive any rain in the short rains season. They are more vulnerable to drought because of heavy reliance on livestock as their source of livelihood. The number of households affected (5,000) increases daily.

‘Children have dropped out of school due to hunger; pregnant women and the elderly are the most affected. Cattle, which are the only source of livelihood, are dying, and the remaining ones are stolen by bandits,’ cries a Kenyan pastor in East Pokot, where the last rainfall was in June 2016. From nearby Marsabit, Pastor Jeremiah Omar reports that 70% of the livestock are already dead from drought - a disaster for the many nomadic communities. The food crisis is escalating, not only in Kenya but also in northern Uganda, which has absorbed over half a million refugees from South Sudan since last July, mostly women and children. Many are widows, or do not know what has happened to their husbands. Many people have very little apart from their clothes they are wearing. Freak weather and drought, due to the El Niño climatic effect, have caused a catastrophic situation. There will be no relief until June at the earliest, and then only if the rains come at the right time. An added problem in Kenya is that many of the worst-affected areas - in the north and the coastal region - are the areas where Christians are a despised, marginalised and oppressed minority amongst a Muslim majority.