Kenya (MNN) — A series of attacks in communities along a key highway in Kenya have left families mourning and looking for justice.
One incident in late April saw seven Christian farmers killed by Muslim Somali herdsmen in Kwa Kamari in Mwingi North, Kitui County. A few days later, gunmen also killed a local child.
Residents in the Mwingi area responded by blockading the Garissa-Mwingi highway in protest, calling for justice against the suspected attackers.
These are only two incidents in a string of retaliatory attacks where both Somalis and local residents have suffered loss or death. Government leaders say the escalating situation should be declared a national emergency.
City scene in Nairobi, Kenya (Photo courtesy of Nicholas Gray/Unsplash)
To Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations, the Church in majority-Christian Kenya has a clear mission.
“There are all kinds of Christian churches — hundreds and hundreds of evangelical, amazing churches in Nairobi that really need to begin mobilizing and sending workers to the east,” he says.
Many Somali Muslims live in eastern Kenya, which borders Somalia. That neighboring country is where the Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab is based.
“All of the tensions in Kenya are happening along its eastern border (which is entirely with Somalia) and its northern border (which is with Ethiopia and Sudan). Those are the entire areas where the unreached people groups live in Kenya,” says Kelley.
“These attacks and tensions that we’re hearing are happening on the road that goes to Somalia. But now that it’s creeping closer to Nairobi, all of a sudden people are starting to raise the alarm and having concern.”
Pray for the Kenyan Church to rally on mission for Somali Muslims. Kelley says that this people group is less than 1 percent Christian.
“Kenya has every opportunity to reach the Somali people inside of Kenya with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” says Kelley. “And what that will do is trigger a movement of Somalis who then go back to their country, taking the gospel with them.”
Header photo of children in Mwingi, Kenya (Photo courtesy of Oscar Omondi via Unsplash).
