ICC Note: Although it has been one year, Kenyan women are struggling to make ends meet to support their families due to the loss of their husbands and are finding themselves in unpleasant conditions. Reports state that Islamic extremists are responsible for the killings of the men.
07/09/2018 Kenya (Morning Star News) – One year after several Christian women lost their husbands to Islamic extremist attacks in coastal Kenya, they have few means of supporting their children.
Gone is the Non-Governmental Organization aid initially offered to them at a camp for internally displaced people. The women, each with three to seven children, left the camp in January after Kenyan officials told evacuees that it was safe to return to their homes.
“At the moment I am experiencing sleepless nights thinking of what my children are going to eat and how they will remain in school – I cannot afford the payment of the school fees,” a mother (name undisclosed for security reasons) of seven children told Morning Star News. “And some of the children are crying for Dad and wish he was around to provide for them.”
One of the widows, still traumatized from the attack by Al Shabaab militants in Lamu County that killed her husband in July 2017, is taking medication and receiving counseling in order to cope, a native Christian worker who requested anonymity told Morning Star News.
“Most of these women are traumatized and depressed,” the worker said. “Their lives are becoming unbearable, as all the family responsibilities fell on their shoulders after their husbands were killed.
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