Kenya’s tourism industry has been dealt yet another blow by ‘Uncle Sam’.
The United States government has issued a fresh advisory warning its airlines of the risk of being attacked within Kenyan airspace.
On Wednesday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in an updated alert warned civilian airliners and all operators of US-registered aircraft to “exercise caution” when flying over Kenyan airspace, citing possible attacks by extremists.
“Those persons are advised to exercise caution when flying into, out of, within, or over the territory and airspace of Kenya East of 40 degrees East longitude at altitudes below fl260 due to the possibility of extremist/militant activity,” the agency said.
The travel advisory shows the US is not confident in Kenya’s ability to repeal the attacks. Kenya depends on tourism earnings as one of its major lifeline and the travel advisory is a blow to Kenya.
FAA issued a similar warning in February 2019. The latest alert by FAA may rock recent growth in the Kenyan travel and aviation sector after years of recovery.
The US is reading from the same script as the United Kingdom which early this year warned its citizens to desist from visiting Kenya or else risk falling prey to blood thirsty terrorists prowling the East African nation.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), listed northeastern counties of Garissa, and Mandera as well as some parts of Tana River and Lamu counties as places British nationals should not go unless it is essential to do so.
On Thursday, the US embassy in Nairobi issued a terror alert attack and warned that extremists may be plotting an attack against a major hotel in Nairobi, urging its citizens to be cautious.
After their daring Sunday dawn attack at a military airbase in lamu that hosts U.S. and Kenyan counter-terrorism forces, that left three Americans dead and several US aircraft and vehicles, Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Al-Shabab warned of more deadly attacks.
The warning comes close to a year since Al-Shabab staged an attack on the five-star dusitD2 Hotel in Nairobi which left 21 dead.
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