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Coast fights to free itself from grasp of drug lords

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A huge cloud of smoke billows from the Mv Bushehr vessel docked at the high seas out of Mombasa Waters in the Indian Ocean on in 2014 evening after it was destroyed with 370.8 kgs of Heroine. [Marufu Mohamed, Standard]

With the shadow of past failures looming large, the spotlight now shifts to President William Ruto as he mounts a daring campaign against the pervasive scourge of illicit trade and drug use gripping the Coast. Will he defy the odds where his predecessors faltered, or will history repeat itself in a cycle of struggle and scant progress?

In the last 25 years, the goal to arrest barons behind illicit trade and use of drugs at the Coast has proved elusive, with low-level peddlers becoming easy targets of arrests and convictions.

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