By Omar Abdallah
Security agencies in Mombasa County have beefed up security in the coastal county just weeks before the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Speaking to members of the press after a meeting with regional security team, Coast regional commissioner Rhoda Onyancha assured the county residents and both local and international tourists of a secure holiday season.
Rhoda revealed that the team has already formulated a security strategy to ensure that the county and region at large is safe.
“Each county has come up with an operational order on how they cover security during the festive season. We have so many events in Mombasa, even other guests in other counties will be visiting the Coast region. We have agreed to continue with the multiagency approach which we rolled out early this year.” said Onyancha.
Among the measures that the security team is taking is increasing police presence and patrols at the beaches.
She warned that police will not relent but deal with pickpocketing and mugging by a team specifically set to tackle the menace
“We are aware that many visitors will be visiting the beaches, so we will increase police presence and patrols in our beaches, I just want to assure our visitors that they will be safe, we want to deal with issues like muggings and other crimes. However, I would like to appeal to parents and guardians to ensure that they take good care of their Children, last year we had several cases of Children getting lost, we would not like to see a repeat of that this year.” said Onyancha.
Onyancha noted that they have come up with multiagency command center and toll free lines which are 911, 112, 999, to enable citizens to share intelligence reports on any form of abuse or breach to security.
On his part Regional Police Commander George Seda said they are ready to deal with any emerging cases during the festive season.
“We are ready to deal with any issue that will come up. Last week we had a meeting with hoteliers to see how we can work together to secure the hoteliers and visitors and we agreed on some measures that we will all use.: said Seda.
Adding ” We will be having police in uniform and in civilian in all areas of the county and region, we are on high alert.”
