NAIROBI, Kenya — Religious tensions between Christians and Muslims have flared after Kenya’s government extended amnesty to youth who denounce the Muslim terrorist group al-Shabab, a step Christian leaders condemned.
On April 14, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery said the government was giving a 10-day amnesty to repentant members of the militant group if they surrender and assemble at government offices in Garissa, Mombasa or Nairobi.
Hundreds of Kenyan youth are believed to have been recruited by the Somalia-based al-Shabab insurgency.
Peter Karanja, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya, said, “We have often turned the other cheek, but now the cheeks have run out. The government must move with speed to definitely and openly punish the perpetrators of the attacks before Kenyans take the law in their own hands and foment an endless religious war.”
(RNS)
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