CAFOD worker OK in Kenya
A Kenyan woman who visited the North East with CAFOD just over two years ago has contacted people she met in the North East to let them know she is safe.
Nelly Shonko, a Project Officer for CAFOD in Nairobi, met CAFOD staff and volunteers on a brief trip to the diocese in November 2005, when she also saw snow for the first time. She sent an email to CAFOD Hexham & Newcastle Diocesan Manager Anne-Marie Hanlon after people she had met in the North East expressed concern for her safety.
She said: “Thank you all for your concern. My family and I are okay now. Initially, people felt insecure to move out of their homes and to go out to shopping centres or to conduct their normal businesses while others were moving out of the area especially into central province. There was a general sense of insecurity. We were also unable to travel and report to work and the office remained closed for the first week.
“At the moment, there have been security scares with ad hoc announcements of demonstrations and each morning we are having to be informed whether the office opens or not. Nevertheless, offices keep opening according to their assessment of the situation.
“My main concern is really about the huge number of people that have been harmed or displaced, and the long term effects of this conflict and also how and when this conflict will stop. I fear that this might go on for really long. Anyway, I hope we will be able to have the conflict resolved soon. Pass our greetings to all.”
Anne-Marie Hanlon said: “Nelly and her colleague Tom were only with us a short time, but they made a big impression, as our visitors generally do. Thanks to email, we could keep people who were worried about them informed.”
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Kenya has appealed to the people to “foster peace and fraternity”, while a solution is sought to end the current crisis.
Bishop Martin Kivuva, Chair of Caritas Kenya, said: “We need to get back to co-existence and let people live wherever they are. Kenya is all of ours.
“This country is bigger than a president. We need to get back to work, back to the farms, factories and businesses. We need to stop the killing and violence, when this stops fear will stop.”
CAFOD is now providing humanitarian aid to over 49,000 people in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kericho, Bungoma and Eldoret, displaced by the election violence in Kenya. The charity has pledged a further £54,000 for vital humanitarian aid including blankets, maize flour, porridge flour, beans, and cooking oil to the thousands of people made homeless by the violence following the country’s elections last month.
Nelly Shonko and Tom Onyango, with Anne-Marie Hanlon in the snow outside Ushaw College in November 2005.
For more information, contact CAFOD Hexham & Newcastle on 0191 373 5001.