Kenya’s border with Somalia will re-open in April almost 15 years after it shut because of attacks by Islamist militant group al-Shabab, President William Ruto has announced.
Based in Somalia, the group has masterminded a series of deadly assaults including one on a shopping centre in the capital, Nairobi, killing 67 people in 2013 and one at a university in Garissa two years later killing 148.
The plan has been announced before, in 2023, but further attacks postponed the arrangements.
Ruto said the intention to re-open two crossings follows years of security assessments, adding that there will be a heavy deployment of security forces to ensure the move does not compromise safety.
The president announced the plan on a visit to the border town of Mandera, in Kenya’s far north-east, which has a large population of ethnic Somalis.
“It is unacceptable that fellow Kenyans in Mandera remain cut off from their kin and neighbours in Somalia due to the prolonged closure of the Mandera Border Post,” Ruto posted on X.
He hoped that the re-opening would boost “cross-border trade for the mutual prosperity of our people”.
