Why Mandera border towns are back to business as usual
Life is slowly returning to Arabia and Lafey, the twin Kenyan border towns in Mandera county which have remained ghost urban centres for a couple of years due to insecurity posed by al-Shabaab militants.
The two towns have borne the brunt of terror attacks from the Somali militant group since Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia in 2011 following a spate of deadly terror attacks.
In the last few months, the towns are coming back to life as residents who fled from them over security concerns streamed back to restart their lives afresh.
This has been made possible by the sustained security operations by the Kenya multi-agency security, which has managed to flush out remnants of the Somali-based insurgent groups. Also roaring back to life are schools and health facilities which have remained partially operational or completely shut down due to the attacks by the militants who used kidnapping, planting of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and lobbing of explosives into the towns.
A report by the Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies (Chrips) released last week showed that at least 77 attacks recorded in 2022 compared to 51 in 2021. The report observed that January 2022 recorded the highest number of attacks at 16 with 41 deaths and sixteen injuries.
According to the report, Mandera county, which borders Somalia had the highest number of terror attacks in 2022 at 37, followed by Lamu county at 21, while Garissa and Wajir suffered the least terror attacks: ten and nine respectively.
Arabia Ward Member of County Assembly (MCA) Daud Sheikh Ali, said Arabia and Lafey towns are now peaceful, and residents have fully resumed their normal life activities with schools, health facilities, and other government offices closed after workers who had fled returned to re-open their businesses. “The town is now very peaceful as you can see for yourself. I am sharing a cup of tea with my people, which was impossible before. Collaboration between the security agencies, the local leaders and the local community has made this possible,” he said during an interview with the People Daily in Arabia town.
Booming business
He added, “Two years ago, it was unimaginable for a political leader, a civil servant or an aid agency worker to step into the town. Most of these booming business activities you are seeing now were closed. We thank Allah and the collaborative efforts between members of the local community with multi-agency security team have borne the dividend.”
The MCA noted that schools, which were on the verge of closure due to lack of students and tutors, are now experiencing over-enrolment because of the prevailing security. Mandera County Commissioner Onesmus Kyatha attributes the reduction of terror attacks in the county this year to collaborative efforts by multi-agency security personnel, the local leaders and the community adding that security agencies have secured all the towns and villages along the Mandera-Lafey road for the past one year from terror activities.
He, however, noted that for the county to secure itself from the menace of terror attacks, the existing collaboration between stakeholders needs to be enhanced even further.
The police chief applauded efforts of the area chiefs (local administrators), which he said has helped forestall many impending attacks different parts of the county.
Kyatha said one of the strategies, that has helped in the reduction of terror attacks in Mandera County was the establishment of permanent Special Forces camps along the terror attacks prone Mandera – Arabia- Lafey road, which carries out 24-hours security patrol.
Mohamed Abdiker, the MP for Lafey, while acknowledging efforts by the security team and the local community for working together to defeat the insurgents, said his office is planning to support the local police to recruit 40 National Police Reservists to complement their ongoing successful assault against Al-Shabaab.
Mohamed Hassan, a driver who plies Mandera – Arabia – Lafey road observed that operations by the security personnel need to include the de-mining of the route for IEDs noting that militants have resorted to planting explosives on the road.
He said the highest death from terror attacks that occurred in the past were largely from IEDs attacks.
The Arabia Ward MCA, appealed to the government to fast-track the operationalisation of the Arabia sub-county, which was gazetted on June 21, 2017, noting that once the sub-county is operationalised most services including security will be available to the locals.
