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  • Kenya Seizes Ivory, Cuts Off Terrorist Funding

    Kenyan customs officers in Mombasa have seized almost four tons of elephant ivory in two separate shipments Wednesday, amid a spike in poaching of the animals. The illicit ivory trade on the black market has been discovered to help fund terrorism.

    Kenya Revenue Authority official Fatma Yusuf said that one cache of ivory weighing roughly 4,200 pounds was found Friday, under a bag of sesame seeds in the port city of Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean. On Tuesday, another 4,400 pounds was found disguised in a similar manner. Both stockpiles were scheduled to be shipped to Turkey.

    Ivory poaching has been on the rise – Zimbabwean poachers recently poisoned 87 elephants with cyanide in Hwange national park, which holds one of the world’s largest herds. Zimbabwean environment minister Saviour Kasukuwere said that park rangers and police have recovered 19 tusks, cyanide and wire snares, while searching villages close to the park.

    The Kenyan seizures are indicative of the poaching of several, if not hundreds, of elephants. Also found in the Mombasa raid was 1,000 pounds of pangolin scales. Pangolins are anteaters and the only mammal known to be covered in armor made of keratin. The scales are used in Chinese traditional medicine, similar to the way rhinoceros horns are used, and as fashion accessories in Asia.

    Kenya Wildlife Service director Arthur Tudor said searches at Mombasa were being increased in a bid to stop smugglers. “We want to ensure that our port is not used as a transit point of ivory,” he said, adding, “We have to step up the war on poachers to completely wipe out the ivory trade – it is threatening elephant populations in the country and entire region.”

    Ivory trade is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Black market ivory generates up to $10 billion a year, and is mostly fostered by clients in Asia and the Middle East. It’s also been suggested that poaching has helped to fund the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Ghanaian Poet Awoonor Among Dead in Nairobi Attack

    Well-known and beloved Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor was one of the casualties of the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya on Saturday. Awoonor, 78, was in Kenya for the Storymoja Hay literary festival, and his son was also wounded in the massacre.

    Somali militant group al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack – The rampage took place in an upscale area of Nairobi, and is believed to have been orchestrated by extremists who were specifically targeting non-Muslim Kenyans and Western expatriates in the area. The attack is said to have been carried out by five to ten men with AK-47′s and hand grenades, and some were disguised as women. As of now, there are still hostages remaining inside the mall.

    Professor Awoonor served as Ghana’s representative to the United Nations between 1990 to 1994, and his work as a writer combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people and religious symbolism, to depict Africa during decolonization. Awoonor studied literature at the University of London, and wrote radio plays for the BBC. He spent the early 1970’s in the United States, studying and teaching at universities.

    Awoonor’s nephew, fellow poet Kwame Dawes, was also visiting Nairobi at the time of the attack, but was in a hotel at the time. He memorialized Awoonor in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday:

    “I saw him a day earlier than that fateful day. It had been a few years since I had last seen him in Ghana. We embraced. We laughed a lot, sharing witty and biting jokes in sotto voce during an often-amusing press conference. That afternoon he gave hope and encouragement to so many poets and writers who gathered to hear him offer a master class for poets.”

    Awoonor was planning to join poets Nii Parkes, Warsan Shire, Clifton Gachagua, and the novelist Teju Cole.

    Dawes pointed out that Awoonor had been writing on the subject of death in his recent poetry. adding, “I take comfort in the sheer beauty of this lyric, and in the fact that at some level, he may have been ready for what he had to face in that mall yesterday:”

    And death, when he comes
    to the door with his own
    inimitable calling card
    shall find a homestead
    resurrected with laughter and dance
    and the festival of the meat
    of the young lamb and the red porridge
    of the new corn

    Image courtesy of YouTube.

  • Americans Injured in Nairobi Mall Massacre

    Americans were among the at least 150 injured in the Westgate Mall terrorist attack in Nairobi today, according to a statement from Marie Harf, deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department. So far, at least 39 people have died in the attack, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said he’s lost some family members in the massacre.

    The rampage took place in an upscale area of Nairobi, and is believed to have been orchestrated by extremists who were specifically targeting non-Muslim Kenyans and Western expatriates in the area. The attack is said to have been carried out by five to ten men with AK-47’s and hand grenades, and Somali militant group al-Shabaab took to Twitter to claim responsibility:

    “The Mujahideen entered #Westgate Mall today at around noon and are still inside the mall, fighting the #Kenyan Kuffar inside their own turf.”

    The al-Shabaab Twitter account has since been suspended, but not before the group tweeted that the attack was retribution for Kenyan forces’ 2011 push into Somalia, and threatened more violence:

    “What Kenyans are witnessing at #Westgate is retributive justice for crimes committed by their military.”

    In a statement, U.S. State Department spokesman Harf said, “we have reports of American citizens injured in the attack, and the U.S. Embassy is actively reaching out to provide assistance. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment on American citizens at this time.”

    Witnesses of the attack said that the gunmen told Muslims to leave the mall before opening fire, and as night fell in Nairobi, hostages remained inside. Army special forces troops are also positioned inside the mall. The Kenyan military has surrounded the building, which sits in the center of the affluent Westlands district, home to upper-class Kenyans, expatriate Westerners – many of whom work for the United Nations.

    Image courtesy of Twitter.