After al Shabaab gunmen massacred nearly 150 people at a Kenyan university on Thursday, singling out Christians for point-blank executions, churches in Kenya are turning to armed guards to protect their Easter Sunday congregations »
Christians who make up 83 percent of the population of 44 million in Kenya.. This Easter Sunday they are horrified to have to worship surrounded by signs of warfare.. modern hate.. the emergence of violence in their nation stunned their souls.
Shabab threatened to make Kenyan cities turn red with blood.. The attack on the school last week was a victory for terror.. Easter Sunday armed guards is a continuation of that win.
Edith Honan with REUTERS reports:
Kenya has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in four crime-ridden counties along its porous 700km border with Somalia, while helicopters were deployed along its palm-fringed coastal region popular with Western tourists.
Robert Kitur, the coastal region police chief, told Reuters extra uniformed and plain-clothes police officers have been deployed in the area, where Islamists have carried out attacks in the past.
"It is a delicate period but we have put the best possible surveillance," he said. "What happened in Garissa must never be seen in Mombasa or anywhere else in the region and country."
The al Qaeda-aligned al Shabaab said the Garissa assault was punishment to Kenya for sending troops into Somalia to fight the group alongside other African Union peacekeepers.
Late on Saturday, 613 students and 50 staff from Garissa University College arrived by bus in Nairobi, where they were welcomed by sobbing parents and relatives. Parents of missing children were at the city’s mortuary, trying to identify the dead.
It was the most deadly attack on Kenyan soil since al Qaeda in 1998 bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, killing more than 200 people and wounding thousands of others.
The attack has put further strain on the historically cordial relations between Kenya’s Christian and Muslim communities, which have deteriorated in recent years due to frequent Islamist attacks on Christian priests and churches.
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THE EASTER VIGIL, 2015
It is seeking a deeper meaning, an answer, and not an easy one, to the questions which challenge our faith, our fidelity and our very existence
We need … the humility not to take ourselves so seriously, recognizing who we really are: Creatures with strengths and weaknesses, sinners in need of forgiveness
To enter into the mystery means going beyond our own comfort zone, beyond the laziness and indifference which hold us back, and going out in search of truth, beauty and love
POPE FRANCIS, EASTER 2015