Youth unemployment in Kenya has risen significantly compared to the neighboring countries which makes them easy prey for terrorist groups.
Due to poverty, frustrations and hopelessness, thousands of young Kenyans have been recruited by Somalia’s armed group al-shabab for decade. Most vulnerable are youths, as they face the highest unemployment rates.
Many Kenyan youths have been used by the militants groups to carry out attacks in their mother land, for example , details have emerged that the recent Dusit D2 terror attackers are from Kiambu and Nyeri.
Police are also pursuing a man seen on CCTV having lunch with six of the suspects at Chicken Inn at Oilibya on Limuru Road just hours before the other six attacked the 14 Riverside Drive complex.
Investigators were busy yesterday piecing together details about 26-year-old Eric Kinyanjui, who is said to come from Ngecha Village in Limuru, and Farouk, reported to have been born and bred in Majengo slum in Nyeri.
Police found documents in their pockets that seemed to reveal their identities and were confirming details.
The two were killed yesterday together with three others inside the DusitD2 hotel and forensic experts started to match their fingerprints as teams were dispatched to their villages.
“They converted to Islam recently and we believe they were brainwashed by al Shaabab,” a police officer involved in the investigations told a local daily. The two are believed to have crossed over to Somalia where they joined the terror group and received training.
The attack was executed in a strategy similar to that of the September, 21, 2013, Westgate mall siege that killed 67 people.
While Kenya’s government is taking the threat of radicalisation seriously, more needs to be done at the grassroots level to rehabilitate former fighters and prevent future ones.