A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
On Saturday 22 November, 2014 at approximately 05.45am, a bus travelling from Mandera Town, North East Kenya to Nairobi was attacked at Ledhi, in the Arabia area, 30km from Mandera Town, which resulted in the death of 28 people (19 males and 9 females). The deceased were professionals working as civil servants in Mandera travelling for holidays in their rural homes in other counties of the country; and included 24 teachers (heading home after schools were closed for December holidays), 1 clinical officer, 1 pharmaceutical technologist (both working for the Ministry of Health (MoH), and 1 police officer and his spouse.
On 2 December, 2014 at 01:00am, a group of 36 quarry miners all male adults were ambushed and killed while they were sleeping in tents around the quarries where they worked in Arabia 5km away from the previous bus attack and 20km from Mandera town. The Al Shabaab group claimed responsibility for the attacks, as retaliation to the closure of mosques in Mombasa. Following the attacks, a population of 500 people, were displaced and camped at the Mandera miilitary camp. Among the relocating population were the governement civil workers and other non government skilled personnels who were working in Mandera.
Due to the worsening insecurity situation Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), an umbrella body for teachers in Kenya announced that none of its members (teachers) would go back to northern and north eastern Kenya.
The medical Practitioners Union also announced to its members to evacuate them from north eastern counties for security reasons. Later the evacuation of medical practitioners led to the closure of health facilities spread across Lafey, Mandera East and Mandera North sub counties, leaving the survivors, family members of the deceased and other remaining population traumatized, and without access to psychosocial assistance.
On 1 December 2015, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) allocated 125,604 CHF from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support the Kenya Red Cross respond to the psychosocial needs of the affected population (2,483) in Mandera County, over a period of three months. An Operations Update n°1 was issued requesting a revision to the Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA), specifically related to Output 1.3 “Provide individual and group psychosocial support to the immediate families and friends of those affected by through the attack”, after it was identified that activities planned against might rekindle grief and other issues amongst the survivors and the bereaved that they have already started addressing. It was agreed that CHF 7,538 would be reallocated to support other psychosocial related activities to be carried out, including follow up sessions with KRCS staff and volunteers involved in the response, and for members of the public that were adversely affected but have not yet received assistance.
The Tsunami Residual Funds contributed to a full replenishment of the DREF allocation made for this operation. The major donors and partners of DREF include the Australian, American and Belgian governments, the Austrian Red Cross, the Canadian Red Cross and government, Danish Red Cross and government, DG ECHO, the Irish and the Italian governments, the Japanese Red Cross Society, the Luxembourg government, the Monaco Red Cross and government, the Netherlands Red Cross and government, the Norwegian Red Cross and government, the Spanish Government, the Swedish Red Cross and government, the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), the Medtronic and Z Zurich Foundations, and other corporate and private donors.
IFRC, on behalf of Kenya Red Cross Society, would like to extend thanks to all partners for their continued support.