Mombasa, Kenya, Oct 18, 2011 / 22:41 pm
The Catholic Archbishop of Mombassa has supported Kenyan military efforts to counter the Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia, but he advises a prudent response.
“We have a responsibility to defend ourselves, hence I support the troops getting into Somalia,” Archbishop Boniface Lele told the Catholic Information Service for Africa on Oct. 18.
Kenya publicly declared an attack on Al-Shabaab Oct. 16, two days after armed militants kidnapped two Spanish aid workers with the group Doctors without Borders from the Dadaab refugee camp, which houses almost 500,000 Somalis.
On Oct. 1, Somali gunmen took a wheelchair-bound Frenchwoman from her home near the resort town of Lamu.