Mpeketoni residents say curfew meant to save lives, should not be lifted soon

In the early 70s, Francis Njeru Chege and his family sighed in relief as a Kenya Army truck sputtered to a stop in the middle of nowhere. The journey had been treacherous, and as the party jumped off and beat the brown dust off themselves, he looked around and wondered how they could even call the bush next to him home.

“But somehow we managed. We dug deep. Very deep and made this area hospitable,” Chege says, smiling at the remembrance of a stubborn distant memory of conquest.