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South Africa: ‘New Reception Office Too Risky for Refugees’

18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008

Francis Hweshe and Luleka Damane

A legal expert from the UCT Law Clinic has raised serious safety concerns over the decision by the Department of Home Affairs to ask refugees to travel to Nyanga to apply for asylum papers.

The department announced on Thursday that, as from next week, asylum seekers from southern Africa would have to go to its Nyanga office for their documentation.

It said its Barrack Street office in the city centre would now cater for asylum seekers from the rest of Africa.

"We are completely disillusioned," said Fatima Khan, senior attorney of the Refugee Rights Project at UCT.

Given that refugees would have to travel by taxi to Nyanga, their lives would be in danger as the "Nyanga taxi rank was extremely volatile".

She said that last month, in light of the recent xenophobic attacks, her office had written a letter to Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Noluthando Mapisa-Nqakula complaining about the Nyanga office. She has yet to receive a response.

The letter read: "In terms of prevailing legislation, in particular the provisions of the Refugee Act 130 of 1998, our clients are obliged to either formally apply for the renewal of their refugee and asylum seeker permits or to attend appeal hearings in relation to applications previously lodged by them.

"To this end, our clients are required to present themselves in person at the refugee reception office for the Western Cape which is situated in the local region of Nyanga.

"According to our clients, Nyanga is one of the areas that have been plagued by xenophobic violence In the light thereof, our clients have expressed strong reservations about entering the general vicinity of Nyanga or attending the reception office out of concern for their safety and security.

"We are of the view that the concerns of our clients are indeed justified and that a failure to pay due regard thereto may jeopardise their safety and security and consequently give rise to drastic infringements of their rights."

The letter requested Mapisa-Nqakula to establish a temporary refugee reception office at an alternative venue where safety and security of refugees would be guaranteed.

"We don’t understand why they (Home Affairs) keep moving us, now they are taking us further to Nyanga," said John Khanzva from Zimbabwe.

Another Zimbabwean, Sharick Dube, said it was expensive to go to Nyanga.

Braam Hanekom, chairman of refugee lobby group People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (Passop), lashed out at Home Affairs on Thursday.

He said for the department to say all asylum seekers from southern Africa had to go to Nyanga was an indirect way of saying all Zimbabweans fleeing their troubled country must risk their lives in Nyanga, the country’s murder capital.

"If the department does not change its position, we will take the legal route," he said.

A Cape Argus team who visited the Nyanga office on Thursday was met by hostile staff who did not want the media "around our clients".

Scores of refugees were milling around outside the premises after they were turned away for being late.

Those who had made it inside for the renewal of their asylum papers and others applying for the first time said: "Everything was happening in slow motion."

The Nyanga office has, since earlier this year, been used to serve asylum seekers who want to renew their papers.

Kenya: Man Who Lost Seven in Family Fears to Return

18 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Barnabas Bii
Nairobi

As victims of the post-election violence started to return to their farms, Mzee Joseph Mwangi Macharia remained a lonely and worried man in an isolated camp in Uasin Gishu District.

At the age of 72 years, Mzee Macharia is reluctant to return to his five-acre piece of land in Chakiaya Village of Burnt Forest. He believes that the Government is doing enough to restore peace in areas affected by the post-election violence, but he is reluctant to return.

"It has been difficult for me to overcome the trauma haunting me following the violent killings and destruction that happened in broad daylight," says Mzee Macharia as he talks of the political violence sparked off by the disputed presidential results. It is as though the violence took place Thursday.

Looking frail and disturbed, Mzee Macharia tells how he lost seven family members, including his wife Miriam Njoki.

So when the Kriegler Commission visited Uasin Gishu District several days ago, Mzee Macharia seized the "golden chance" to express his opinions about what caused the violence.

Even after waiting for more than 10 hours at the Eldoret Municipal Hall, the venue of the event, chances of airing his views remained elusive. At the end of it all, Mzee Macharia returned to the camp at Timboroa, about 70 kilometres from Eldoret Town, a disappointed man.

Political violence

"My chance will come one day. We need to be told of the main causes of political violence and come up with solutions on how to avoid a repeat," said Mzee Macharia as he boarded a vehicle back to Bishop Muge Camp, which neighbours his farm.

Chakaiya Village in the trouble hit Burnt Forest was thrown into shock when police exhumed seven bodies of Mzee Macharia’s family as investigations into perpetrators of post-election violence intensified.

Apart from the remains of wife Njoki, other bodies were of his sons Daniel Irungu (35), Joel Ngechu (23) and Pharis Macharia (36), daughter Milka Nyambura (25) and grand children Miria Njoki (7) and Joseph Mwangi (7).

According to the villagers, the seven were hacked to death at the height of the violence on the eve of the New Year.

"We hurriedly buried the seven in the shallow grave and fled due to fear of attacks," said Mr Peter Gacheru Kariuki, one of Mzee Macharia’s relatives.

Hundreds of villagers and pathologists led by Dr Kamau Wainaina from Rift Valley Provincial Hospital turned up to witness the bodies being exhumed.

More than 300 people were killed and over 150,000 others displaced in the North Rift region during the skirmishes.

Enduring the pain

"After enduring all the pain, we had to accord them a decent burial. Police helped us to achieve exactly that," said one of the relatives.

Mzee Macharia discloses that the bodies were buried in three coffins, that of Mrs Njoki in her own while the rest shared the other two.

According to Uasin Gishu OCPD Muinde Kioko, some suspects have been arrested in connection with the post-election violence. Others have been arraigned in court.

"Investigations to bring to book perpetrators of the post-election violence is on and some suspects have even appeared in court to face charges," explains Mr Muinde.

Police in April exhumed another body of post-election victim in the same village following a crackdown on those behind the chaos.

Conflicting reports

There have been conflicting reports between the Government and political leaders over the exact number of suspects arrested in connection with the post-election violence and where they are being held for interrogation.

Whereas the Government maintains that only 103 suspects have been arrested, politicians placed the figure at thousands. Area leaders want them to be released in order to facilitate speedy reconciliation and resettlement process.

Most of the victims displaced during the violence have been relocated to transitional camps close to their farms to enable them access the farms and engage in other income generating activities.

But to Mzee Macharia, the idea of going back to his Chakasiya farm is not among his priorities unless the Government guarantees him adequate security.

"It is too early to contemplate going back considering all the losses I have incurred in life," says Mzee Macharia as he counts what he used to own before the violence.

But all is not lost for the man who says he is a Christian. "Life is not a straight line and I trust that I will one day be able to recollect myself and resume my usual lifestyle," Mzee Macharia says summoning some confidence.

Rwanda: Managing Nile Crisis

OPINION
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008

Kelvin Odoobo
Kigali

A recent expedition by a New Zealand team of explorers, claims to have reached the true source of the River Nile after travelling 6,700 kilometres in the Nyungwe forest.

In July 2007, news that scientists from Boston University had discovered, through remote sensing by use of radar, an ancient lake covering 19,110 square miles under the war-ravaged, arid plateau, in the Darfur region, was warmly welcomed.

Many thought this signalled an end to a war analysts blame largely, on water scarcity, which has claimed thousands of lives, a source of a huge humanitarian catastrophe, as displaced persons find their way into neighbouring countries.

The resultant struggles between nomadic pastoralists and farmers for the crucial resource for watering their animals or plants respectively, are a source of much debate.

Farouk el-Baz, Boston University’s, Centre for Remote Sensing, Director, told The Times UK, "what most people don’t really know is that the war, the instability, in Darfur is all based on the lack of water".

Claims backed by French geologist, Mr. Alain Gachet, "this Lake was at the bottom of a broad watershed feeding the Nile above Khartoum," although he thought that the scientists had a slim hope of finding water under the Darfur, he added that, "this watershed is completely dry today on the southern border of Egypt, Libya and north-western border of Sudan - one of the worst areas in the world."

One year later, Darfur is back in the news, for all but the wrong reasons. Water wells have not been drilled to end the conflict notwithstanding that this precious resource, water is still a major part of the problem.

In 1999, the UNDP predicted that in the next two and a half decades, African countries would begin to fight over water, especially in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country.

The age-old adage that water is life needs no repeating. Two thirds of the human body is composed water. We feed of plants or animal by-products that depend on water to grow.

The biggest centres of civilization in the world are constructed around points of water sources. The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia developed between the river’s Tigris and Euphrates, while Egypt developed around the Nile.

According to Alex Stone hill, in his article, "World Water Crisis"; the Lake Victoria/Nile River system and its nine associated countries that share the system (Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo) are some of the world’s poorest nations with exploding populations, increasing stress on valuable water resources.

In as much as the Great Lakes region grapples with the current global food crisis, the scarcity of water is urgent - a potential threat to our survival. So should we believe the pessimists who are quick to jump to the Water wars - World War Three scenario?

Perhaps yes, because, we need water, and we do not have water, then we will fight to get some water. But then, why is the region, and many other flaring regions in the world, facing threats due to water scarcity?

"There is a very strong link between land degradation, desertification and conflict in Darfur," reads the U.N.

Environmental Program report, "exponential population growth and related environmental stress have created the conditions for conflicts to be triggered and sustained by political, tribal or ethnic differences,".

Lydia Polgreen, in ‘How Much Is Ecology to Blame for the Darfur Crisis?’, says that the idea that more water, unearthed through a thousand wells sunk into the underground lake, could neatly defuse the crisis is seductive.

Messy African conflicts, from Congo to Liberia, from northern Uganda to Angola, seem to become hopelessly more complex as they agonizingly drag on, year after year.

She adds that a scientific explanation for environmental degradation gratifies the modern humanitarian impulse.

The truth of the matter remains that as the world population explodes, there will be more mouths to feed and hence, more food must be produced.

In 1999, Worldwatch lamented that agriculture is by far the biggest user of water in Africa accounting for 88% of water use, and by implication, water scarcity would directly affect the continents’ food availability.

Even going on to suggest that to pre-empt the crisis of water, hence food shortage, African’s countries should consider importing grain.

Gambia: Rural-Urban Migration

EDITORIAL
17 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Migration is an old age problem that is not in any way limited to the developing world alone. Brought about by a series of problems, migration unravels a whole lot of societal constraints in its wake.

It, however, remains a subject of argument as to who suffers more from its sweeping effects; the losing community or the recipient community.

While problems of migration in some communities manifest themselves on the work force as affected settlements turn into mere deserted pieces of land, as can be seen with rural-urban migration, (which is more common in developing countries like The Gambia); in some other quarters, the impact is felt on the social services.

This is quite obvious in the recipient communities, and it is common in both the developed and the developing world. Criminality in all its manifestation as well as overcrowding, among a host of other problems, are all common phenomena in such places. These create an added burden for the authorities responsible for such communities. This is why African governments have taken it upon themselves to stem this deep-rooted phenomenon.

In The Gambia, the government’s development agenda caters for migration. Suffice it to say that the process of decentralization is on track. Take, for instance, the rural electrification project, which aims at not only enhancing the ground for business opportunities, but also to bring about a better living condition for the inhabitants in the provinces by providing them with the basic social services that go with electricity.

The renewed vigor with which government is promoting agricultural production takes into consideration the overall effort of stemming internal migration. If the people can take care of themselves through agricultural production, they will have no reason to migrate to the urban centers only to hang around and become liabilities. Instead, they will become true servants to their nation rather having to depend on government, as has been the routine.

Besides electricity supply and agriculture, there has also been improvement on availability of portable water supply. In most major towns in the country, you can find just as much facilities as one would expect in big cities like Serekunda and Banjul. The Gambia government is by no means relenting in its effort to making sure that Gambians, wherever they are, enjoy equal opportunities and quality livelihood.

South Africa: The Pogroms - A Crisis in Citizenship

OPINION
17 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Richard Pithouse

The industrial and mining towns on the Eastern outskirts of Johannesburg are unlovely places. They’re set on flat windswept plains amidst the dumps of sterile sand left over from old mines.

In winter the wind bites, the sky is a very pale blue and it seems to be all coal braziers, starved dogs, faded strip malls, gun shops and rusting factories and mine headgear. All that seems new are the police cars and, round the corner from the Harry Gwala shack settlement, a double story facebrick strip club.

But even here the battle for land continues. The poor are loosing their grip on the scattered bits of land which they took in defiance of apartheid more than twenty years ago. The state is, again, sending in bulldozers and men with guns to move the poor from central shack settlements to peripheral townships. In every relocation many are simply left homeless. It is very difficult to resist the armed force of the state but people do what they can. Officials are often stoned. In principle the courts should provide relief from evictions that are not just illegal but are in fact criminal acts under South African law. There have been notable successes but it is often difficult to get pro bono legal support, legal processes are slow and the evictions continue.

In the Harry Gwala settlement the poorest women are on their hands and knees searching for bits of coal to bake into lumps of clay to keep the braziers burning. S’bu Zikode from Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban and Ashraf Cassiem from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town are here to meet with the Harry Gwala branch of the Landless People’s Movement. These are all poor people’s movements that have been criminalised and violently attacked by the state. The meeting is to discuss strategies for holding onto the urban land that keeps people close to work, schools, libraries and all the other benefits of city life. This is what it has come down to. Militancy is about holding onto what was taken from apartheid.

Here in Harry Gwala forced removals started in 2004. That was also the year in which the Landless People’s Movement declared a boycott of the local government elections and were subject to severe repression, including the police torture of some activists. In August of the following year 700 residents marched on the Mayor demanding an end to forced removals and the immediate provision of water, electricity and toilets. Provincial Housing Minister Nomvula Mokonyane declared that the evictions "marked another milestone for housing delivery" and explained that "We are doing all this because we are a caring government and want to give you back your dignity". The Municipality’s website responded to the march by noting that "Although there was an initial reluctance on the part of the Harry Gwala residents to move, the metro and the [private housing] company met them to work through any objections and give them reasons why such a move would be worth their while." But in May 2006, when the Municipality tried to move ahead with the forced removals in earnest, it became clear that residents were determined to hold their ground. The Johannesburg Star reported that "police fired rubber bullets and bulldozed their way into the Harry Gwala informal settlement near Wattville after residents barricaded themselves in with burning tyres. Shots rang out and people scattered in all directions as metro police fired at them. Twelve people were injured and were taken to hospitals in the area."

In Harry Gwala the evictions are remembered as a war. Now the settlement is recovering from a different kind of eviction, a different kind of war. It is to this that the discussion soon turns. The Freedom Charter adopted in Johannesburg in 1955 as the manifesto of the struggle against apartheid declared that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it." But for two terrible weeks in May people unable to pass mob tests for indigeneity were intimidated, beaten, hacked, raped and burnt out of shack settlements and city centres across South Africa. The attacks began in the shack settlements around Johannesburg. In Harry Gwala the homes of two Shangaan families, one whom had come from Maputo in Mozambique and the other from Giyani in South Africa, were burnt and demolished. All that is left is squares of burnt earth. The local Landless People’s movement moved swiftly to condemn the attacks and to work with the local police, with whom they have often been in conflict, to stop them from spreading further. In the nearby Makause settlement, which is not organised into an oppositional movement autonomous from the state, things were far worse. Here the settlement is dotted with burnt out and demolished buildings. There is also a terribly empty 200 metre long strip where, in February last year, 2 500 shacks were unlawfully demolished at gunpoint by the state and the residents forcibly moved to a ‘transit camp’ 40 kilometres out of town.

In the second week the pogrom spread to the city centre and there were clashes at the Central Methodist Church, a well known haven for undocumented Zimbabweans, where residents successfully barricaded themselves in with piles of bricks for defence. In January there had been a much more damaging attack on the church. On that occasion the attack came from the police. They stormed in with dogs, pepper spray and batons and arrested 500 people. The church told the media that people were assaulted and robbed in the attack and that even those with documents were arrested.

In the second week the pogroms also spread to Durban, Cape Town and the small towns in the hinterland. In Durban the first attack was on a down town Nigerian bar and was followed by attacks on Rwandese and Congolese people living in city flats and then attacks on Mozambicans, Zimbabweans and Malawians living in shack settlements. In Cape Town it began with the Somali shopkeepers, who have been murdered at an incredible rate for years. The state has dismissed the clearly targeted nature of the ongoing killing of Somalis as ‘just ordinary crime’.

South Africa: Xenophobia is a Global Phenomenon

OPINION
17 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Chengiah Rogers Ragaven

Xenophobia, refugees and immigration politics in their own right have negative connotations when examined through the lens of universal values, moral truths or scriptural teachings which form the basis of our humanitarian civilization, but when translated and practiced through the lens of racism, religious chauvinism, cultural and ethnic ‘otherness,’ the consequence can be horrendous and catastrophic.

Matthew J Gibney (2004) examines the emergence of Xenophobia, Refugees and Immigration politics in liberal democracies and its response to the ‘crisis’ as framed by these states. Gibney cites the earlier work of Hannah Arendt, her sustained critique of Europe’s creation of nation states, thus depriving ‘ethnics communities’ of citizenship rights and ‘manufacturing’ them as ‘outcasts’ in their own societies. In so doing it established the fragmentation of peoples , thereby indelibly etching into modern civic politics, the concept of ‘otherness.’ Thus it also adds another hue to the many shades of ‘identity’ to the ‘rainbow of whitism’

In Africa, however, cultural, genocidal and hegemonic racism, has been and still is one of the primary social evil of our times, moreover so, systematically infecting caste, class and linguistic dissonance for over 500 years. More concretely racism has through its imperial, colonial and apartheid processes de-socialized and pathologized whole generations of ‘non-white’ peoples. The historical damage to the continent continues to be immeasurable. But all this has been the strategies of whitism - imperialism, colonialism and now globalization. The ‘white church, military, law and education’ have been the chemistry of this ‘culture of otherness’ and the hallmark of Globalism. The 5% of the world whose philosophy has been ‘manifest destiny’ own over 80% of the world’s wealth and power and are the gatekeepers of this super-state system.

What in fact one notices in the new millennium is the dialectical relationship between global racism with all its inequalities and international injustices interfaced with national forms of exclusion , xenophobia and refugees of countries like South Africa. It is this dialectic that makes Xenophobia, refugees and immigration politics international and local at the one and the same time.

In a paper prepared for the Institutes of Race Relations in London titled "The Dispersal of Xenophobia", Liz Fekete (2000) describes the crises of Xenophobia, Refugees and public policies by European governments. A closer look and analysis of the paper makes it fairly obvious that consequences of the "chickens" of colonialism are now coming home to roost in the "mother countries" of imperialism , while further south the ‘poorer’ escaping to the ‘richer’ of the same neo-colonial continent, all victims however of the broader Globalization policy.

The restrictive immigration policies of both European and colonial countries, and in the latter case, encouraging "kith" and "kin" to the exclusion of non white people, have spawned a whole corpus of restrictive legislative enactments usually rationalized and legitimated through liberal disguise of ‘modern racialized economic policies’ of the likes of World Bank and IMF. Paradoxically however, with expanding markets by Western nations, cheap labor from "conquered" countries was always necessary, creating the two "solitudes" that are all too common in these societies.

The large influx of West Indians and Bangladeshis into England, Turks and Mediterranean Arabs to Germany and France, the Indonesians and East Timorese into Holland in the ’50s and 60’s spawned the growth of right wing and pseudo-nationalist groups in these countries, encouraging and spreading xenophobia together with other shades of racial prejudices worldwide. African, Asian, and Latin American people forced into an inflated modernism of ‘white styles’ following the wealth trail . In other cases students are recruited through scholarship programs to be "indoctrinated" and to be later sent back ‘brainwashed’ to legitimate the imperialist structures in their home countries and in the meanwhile becoming unsuspecting victims of xenophobia and crime.

New variations of racial segregation, prejudice and rationalities have become the norm in Western countries, especially America by the settler society having decimated most of the indigenous native people to become guardians of ‘civilization.’

Note Friedman’s recent comments in the New York Times as regards Bush’s "xenophobic opposition to Dubai Ports World managing US Harbors." Prejudice of the ‘others’ become refined quite readily in the Oxbridge and Ivy League law schools where by a whole corpus of immigration restrictions are ‘manufactured’ and ‘policified’, and applied to any ‘alien’ randomly selected by a cadre of ‘profiling police’ The social science, business and theology departments for centuries structured language, ideology and rationality to legitimate this ‘ pure blood’ theory.

At the beginning of this century, as the ground swell of working class rose in Western societies, racial and xenophobic antagonism increased. The black labor force, first recruited through slavery, then later through indentured and contractual labor to work the machinery of capitalism, are now becoming the scapegoats of the white proletarian racism. Race riots, segregation legislations and restrictions on "foreigners" and whole panoply of ‘prejudices’ helped these governments to design and implement draconian immigration policies.

Politicians in western countries were quick to seize the opportunity of using the "numbers game" accusing each other for allowing immigrants to flood the country. Xenophobia was being given respectability and legitimated. Right wing newspapers and the media sensationalized the issues with negative stereotypes with semi-literate DJ’s and talk show hosts "playing/speaking to the audience". Enoch Powell, for instance, the notorious Conservative British politician at the height of the "foreigners" Immigration debate called for the "repatriation of the immigrants". From the ‘mother country’ this notorious policy was adopted by the ‘chickens country’ of South Africa where repatriation, became the solution for certain Nationalist Party leaders, to what was perceived then as the ‘Indian problem’ in the country in the 1950’s.

South Africa: Victims of Xenophobia to Lose Shelters

17 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Sibongakonke Shoba
Johannesburg

THOUSANDS of displaced xenophobic violence victims accommodated at safety shelters - who do not want to be repatriated or reintegrated to communities - could be left without shelter and food when the Gauteng provincial government closes its centres next month.

Government spokesman Thabo Masebe said earlier this week the government had no plans for people who would still be at the centres when the tents are dismantled next month.

He said their plan was to work with communities to ensure that reintegration took place.

Thousands of foreigners were displaced during xenophobic attacks in Gauteng in May. About 20 000 were housed at different community centres.

Last month, the Gauteng government erected safety shelters to accommodate the foreigners for two months.

Masebe said that according to figures released last week, there were still about 4000 displaced foreigners being accommodated in six camps in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

Asked what the government would do if there were still people at the centres next month, he said, "We’ll make that decision when we get there, but we remain positive communities would create conducive conditions for displaced people to come back."

He said the government did not plan on the basis that it would fail. The government would assist with reintegration, but it would be upon those foreigners who did not want to be reintegrated to find alternative accommodation.

"We can’t force them to live where they don’t want to live … We hope there won’t be any problems by the time we close the shelters."

However, a top government official said it was possible there would still be people at the shelters as more foreigners arrived at the centres.

"People who were not displaced by the attacks and people who had just come into the country are taking advantage of the situation because there is free shelter and free food," the official said.

In one centre, it was found that 12 people, instead of six, were occupying a tent.

"This is because there are people in these shelters who are not supposed to be there."

The official said it was not easy for centre managers to detect the irregularities.

In Durban, about 404 displaced foreigners would be left without aid as the Ethekwini Municipality would no longer provide assistance.

Lungisa Manzi, the city’s head of disaster management said: "The municipality does not have the mandate nor the resources to continue to sustain the requirements of those foreign nationals who have decided not to return home or to go back to their houses."

Wildebeest Migration to Boost Tourism

18 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008

Nairobi

The annual wildebeest migration is expected to attract a large number of tourists to Kenya coming after six months of uncertainty following the post-election violence.

The annual Wildebeest migration in the Maasai Mara is classified as the seventh wonder of the world. Photo/FILE

The migration, classified as the seventh wonder of the world, is a world famous event that takes place from July every year. Both local and international airlines, which bring in visitors to Kenya and by extension the Mara, are among the beneficiaries of this phenomena.

"Things are gradually getting back to normal and we are operating two scheduled flights to the Mara, one from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the other from Mombasa and Malindi. These flights land on any of the seven airstrips in the Masai Mara depending on the bookings," said Mr Sammy Nzoka, Fly540 operations manager, Safari Circuit.

"We have timed our morning flights to link up with international airlines bringing tourists from the UK, India, Asia and Egypt. Many of these visitors want to go straight to the Mara without stopping in Nairobi. Our Mombasa flight mainly takes passengers destined to the Mara from charter aircraft from Europe," he added.

A year ago, Fly540 became the first airline to offer services between JKIA and the tourist resort, and to link Mombasa and Malindi to the Mara directly.

The service mainly targets tourists arriving on international flights, holiday makers at the coast and Kenyans who want to visit the Mara without going via road.

Maasai Mara is the most famous game reserve in Kenya and is best known for viewing the big five in wide open scenic surroundings and the migration of zebra and wildebeest between Kenya and Tanzania every year from July to October.

Zimbabwe: Number of Deportees From SA Declines

Zimbabwe: Number of Deportees From SA Declines