Three Stabbed in Riots in Kenya Coastal City
Three people were stabbed Friday in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa when fresh rioting broke out after Friday prayers, police said.
Around 300 young men, some armed with machetes and knives, lit bonfires to block roads in protest at the arrest on Sunday of 129 Muslim men and boys whom police accused of attending a radicalization session at the Musa mosque.
Of the 129, 21 have have been released as they were under the age of 12 and the remaining 108 are still in custody.
Police said they had arrested a further ten men over Friday's protests, in which cars, minibuses and shops were also vandalized.
"These are hooligans taking advantage of the situation to cause havoc in town, those arrested will have to face the law," Julius Wanjohi, a local police chief, said.
The injured, identified by another officer as passers-by, are being treated in hospital.
Wanjohi said police had beefed up their presence in town, both with foot patrols and on trucks.
Police justified Sunday's raid on the Musa mosque, which resulted in riots in which three people were killed, by saying they had stormed it to break up a radicalization meeting.
Police have in the past linked the mosque to recruitment for the the Somali Islamist group the Shebab.
The Shebab claimed the September 2013 attack on Nairobi's Westgate mall, in which at least 67 people were killed.
Shebab sympathizers and sleeper cells have been blamed for a series of deadly but much smaller attacks over the past two years in Kenya.
Source: Agence France Presse
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