Who are the MRC? And exactly what are their motives?
The Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has recently resurfaced in the media spotlight again after the government arrested 40 members of its suspected members during an alleged oathing ceremony in Likoni, Mombasa County.
It is not surprising that the MRC has frequently been getting in trouble with the law as it was among the 33 groups that were declared ‘illegal organized criminal groups’ by the Government of Kenya through a Gazette notice issued in 2010 October.
#Kenya Mombasa – Police arrest 40 suspected members of Mombasa Republican Council MRC separatist organisation at Shelly Beach for holding a meeting without a permit. pic.twitter.com/TJDRCxAwRL
— Evelyn Tremble (@DrumChronicles) November 22, 2018
Likoni Deputy County Commissioner Eric Wamlevu said the suspects were nabbed at Shelly Beach where they were taking an illegal oath.
Mr Wamlevu said the suspects did not have a permit for the meeting.
At Likoni Police Station, the Nation team saw dozens of MRC membership cards that were seized from the suspects by officers.
Police said the suspects are from Kwale, Lamu and Kilifi counties.
“According to national identity cards that we seized, the suspects are aged between 35 and 70 years,” police said.
Mombasa Republican Council is a separatist organisation based in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya. The group claims areas around Mombasa and the coastal area. It has both Muslim and Christian supporters.
The Mombasa Republican Council is a group based in the Kenyan Coast that was formed with the intention of righting what they believe to be wrongs done to the coastal people. Since its formation in the mid to late 90s, the MRC has had one clear agenda. Secession.
The MRC spokesman Mohamed Rashid Mraja said they formed the movement to liberate the coastal region due to decades of alleged marginalization by successive governments. They make eerily similar claims to those brought forward by the shifta (Somali militia) who wanted to secede parts of North Eastern Province in the 1960s to be part of a ‘Greater Somalia’ – the shifta were eventually stamped out in a deadly confrontation that left several people dead.
In september, the trial of 38 suspected members of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) charged with being in possession of dangerous weapons failed to kick off.
This was after Mr Yusuf Abubakar; the advocate representing the suspects failed to turn up for the hearing as he was engaged in another matter before Malindi Court.
The arrest comes days after gunmen attacked a village in the coastal town and kidnapped an Italian woman whom police have launched manhunt for.