How Somali pirates and terrorists made bank off two Western hostages – Vocativ

“It is highly unlikely that kidnappers will strike again at tourist areas on Kenya’s north coast,” says Major Emmanual Chirchir, former spokesman during Operation Linda Nchi, Kenya’s military campaign in Somalia to fight Al Shabaab. “But towns and refugee camps like Dadaab near the porous Kenya-Somali border in the northeast remain vulnerable.”

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Magical Mogadishu | from Bullets to Ballots

MOGADISHU – Mad Max Gone Wrong FEBRUARY 5-7, 2012 My American travel pal told me back in Nairobi that we’d had a deceptively smooth experience in Mogadishu. Mogadishu is the sort of place that on the surface may strike you as surprisingly safe and peaceful; residents going about their daily business of selling basics in […]

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How safe is Kenya’s coast for tourists?

Read my award-winning Newsweek story about the tourist kidnappings. byliner.com/margot–kiser/stories/filter/award_winners Paradise revised. Difficult to imagine that anything bad can happen in a place this beautiful. Manda island, 2011 Glassy waters on approach to Marie Dedieu’s grass hut. Like fruit on an outdoor stand almost anyone living the Robinson Crusoe dream was ripe for the plucking. […]

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Apocalypse Mogadishu — Ancient Rome meets Mad Max gone wrong

I wonder if I had known more about the history and layout of Mogadishu where all the suicide bombings had taken place and had known circumstances in which Shabab snuffed out civilian lives whether I’d have gone. Though Swahili, with its many Arabic words, carried me a long way here in Mog, my American travel […]

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