Recently, a gang broke into a Kenyan safari resort and killed a British tourist and kidnapped his wife. The Kenyan safari cottages don't usually have "real" doors, so the bandits entered the room without any difficulty. The resort is about 28 miles from Somalia; the gang could belong to a Somali Islamist group, al-Shabaab, linked to al-Qaeda. They could also be pirates; but for the time being, it is treated by the Kenya Police as a "bandit attack". The FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) demands the release of its citizen and advises to tourists to stay away from the Somali border where there have been other previous attacks.
This terrible event is not going to leave either Kenya or the international community indifferent. The country's main economic resource is tourism. Tourists will not be interested anymore in traveling to Kenya if the country cannot offer them a safe trip. Also, this will most likely worsen relations between Kenya and Somalia, if indeed Somali terrorists or pirates committed the crime. This tragedy is neither going to help the weak stability of the Kenyan government; the country will have to definitely figure out how the deal with these violent attacks to tourists if they don't want to see their economy extremely affected. Hopefully the women will be soon safely release and that the consequences of this story will not be more terrible than they have already been.
Source: "Kenya hunt for kidnapped UK widow after husband killed" from BBC News, September 12th 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14876993
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