Germany offers Kenya Sh200m for bombs detection school

Germany will donate 1.8 million Euros (Sh207.1 million) for the construction of a college in Nairobi that will equip the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) with skills to detect and safely disarm bombs.

The Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Centre (C-IED Centre) to be located at the Embakasi Garrison will be a constituent college of the International Peace Support Training Centre.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said KDF will stay in Somalia until security is restored even as the Al-Shabaab militia continue to conduct frequent assaults in Kenya.

“The Cabinet meeting discussed and approved an agreement where Germany has offered to donate 1.8 million Euros for the construction of the C-IED Centre,” read the statement from State House.

Approval of establishing the C-IED Centre comes just days after two people were injured when an IED went off at the Tom Mboya Street-Latema Road intersection in Nairobi’s Central Business District.

It also comes slightly over two weeks since the 14 Riverside terrorist attack that claimed 21 lives and left several people injured.

In August last year, five KDF soldiers were killed after their vehicles ran over an improvised explosive device in Lamu. The troops were distributing water to residents.

Kenya sent 4,660 soldiers to Somalia in October 2011 after incessant attacks and kidnapping of civilians by militants within its territory.

The African Union is keen on all the troops withdrawing by December 2020, but Kenya wants a delayed exit.

Al Shabaab assaults on Kenya are mostly in the region bordering Somalia, probably to pile pressure on Kenya to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Somalia.

The Qaeda-linked group also carries out frequent attacks in Mogadishu, with intention to dislodge the government and impose its rule.

The group has killed thousands of Somalis and hundreds of civilians across East Africa in a decade-long insurgency.