It has always been one of the most peaceful places in Kenya and perhaps the most beautiful too — a Swahili island paradise of warm, deep-blue water, golden sands and ancient, narrow streets where cars are banned and donkeys rule. Even the commute from Lamu’s airport is spectacular, with wooden motorboats ferrying tourists to their hotels in the Old Town or further along the beach, but now the traffic is nearly all one way.
“Few people coming,” said Mohamed Lali, 50, a boat captain wearing a faded T-shirt and a wrap. “Only people leaving.”
The reason is fear.
On Saturday morning, a 66-year-old disabled French woman was kidnapped from her beach house in the Lamu by Somali gangsters who bundled her into a speedboat and escaped to Somalia. The attack came two weeks after a British woman was abducted while on holiday further up the coast in Kiwayu, close to the Somalian border. Her husband was killed. She is still missing.
Following this weekend’s kidnapping, several foreign governments immediately changed their travel advice. Britain and the US, which provide the biggest number of tourists to Kenya, warned their citizens to stay away from Lamu, as did France. At a stroke, the tourism sector was shattered.
Some guests took the first flight home. Others shortened their stays and cancelations poured in. At Lamu House, a high-end hotel on the Old Town seafront, there were 12 cancelations on Tuesday. Only one of the 10 rooms was occupied — by an expat couple on leave from their posts in Somalia.
The hotel’s 45 staff members had gathered next to the swimming pool, listening to the Belgian owner, Frank Feremans.
“I had to let half of them go,” he said, his eyes red with tears. “This is going to be a hard time for the people here.”
Some hotels have shut altogether, especially on Manda island, where the French woman was kidnapped. Across the water in Shela, a village where super-wealthy Europeans, including Prince Albert of Monaco, own spectacular Swahili-style mansions, hotels have beefed up security.
At Peponi Hotel, where the cheapest single room goes for US$230, three armed police officers now keep watch at night, along with two watchmen on boats moored in front of the hotel.
Lars Korschen, the owner, said there had been numerous cancelations and though he had not yet laid off any of his 120 employees, the hotel was “way overstaffed.”
“I can’t blame the governments for telling tourists not to come,” he said. “If it [kidnapping] has happened twice, it could happen again.”
The Kenyan authorities have been embarrassed by the kidnapping in Lamu. Though few locals had believed that the Somalian kidnappers would be so brazen as to launch an attack, there is a feeling that police were complacent.
One hotel manager, who asked not to be named, said police had assured hotel owners after the Kiwayu kidnapping that security forces in Lamu were “on high alert, with all measures taken,” but even though there is a naval base in Lamu, the kidnappers were able to escape to Somalia, several hours away by boat. Two Kenyan naval officers drowned during the pursuit after their boat capsized.
“The boats were not ready and the officers were not trained well,” the hotel manager said.
Chastened, the Kenyan government sent the tourism minister and police chief to Lamu to try to allay fears of further attacks. Several police boats were in Lamu harbor on Tuesday and a police aircraft waited on the airstrip.
Fredrick Karenga, the district tourist officer, said a police helicopter would be stationed in town from now on and officers were already positioned along the various coastal entry points to the main tourist areas.
“We will not let Lamu die. We have learned our lesson and there will be no repeat,” Karenga said.
However, that is little consolation for Abdillahi Abubakar, a tour guide who has seen his business disappear overnight. It will be several months, and possibly much longer, before business returns to normal, but his loss has not been purely financial.
“This place has always been peaceful. Everyone knew each other, so we did not need police or much security. That’s how it was,” he said.
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