Like Bhuja, most of the 42,000 Gujaratis settled in Kenya have suffered huge financial setbacks in the ethnic riots. Fortunately not a casualty from the community has been reported, though more than 250 lives have already been lost in the strife.

There are around 17,000 Visa Oshwal community members from Jamnagar settled in Kenya since ages, with the majority of them into retail business. The community back home has been trying to get in touch with their relatives in Kenya, but the information available so far has been quite sketchy and incomplete.

"We have been trying to contact as many community members, who are settled in Kenya, as possible. But we have not been able to establish contact with those settled in towns like Kisumu and Eldoret, where violence has been reportedly widespread," said Chandrakant Shah, a Visa Oshwal community leader from Jamnagar. "What we have so far been able to learn is that while there has been no casualty among the Gujaratis, the community has suffered huge financial losses with mobs resorting to loot and arson.

Shah said, his own relatives, including two sisters are in Nairobi and Kisumu, a town located northwest of the capital. "Nairobi has been taken over by the army and so it is safe. But my relatives have been holed up in houses without food and milk for four days now. In places like Mumbasa and Eldoret, people had to leave their houses for safer places," he said.

Jyoti Doshi, a journalist from Jamnagar who has relatives in Kenya said, "I have been talking to my relatives in Kenya who have told me that the situation there is far from normal. The people are living under the shadow of fear and anxiety. The shops and business establishments across the town of Kisumu have been burnt down. In Kisumu, Eldoret and Mumbasa, residential areas have also been torched and people have taken refuge in temples."

The re-election of President Mwai Kibaki on Sunday sparked off violence on the streets. Supporters of the defeated candidate, Raila Odinaga, alleged manipulation in the counting process. The presidential election results have pitched two ethnic groups against each other.

Courtesy By : Express India