Kenya’s coastal region has, since about 2011, grappled with terrorist attacks carried out by the Somalia-based Islamic terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab.
Muslims in coastal Kenya have long complained about their relative marginalisation versus Christians. Al-Shabaab has sought to capitalise on this sense of marginalisation to draw recruits and support from a small minority of Kenyan Muslims.
Kenyan authorities have also associated the problem of violent extremism with witchcraft.
