"Nairobi demo targets funders of S/Sudan conflict"

Parts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi ground to a halt... as a teeming mass of demonstrators took to the streets to push for an official crackdown on local banks allegedly aiding and abetting the conflict in South Sudan. According to leading activist Boniface Mwangi, the ongoing carnage in South Sudan has claimed the lives of 3 percent of the country’s population and is being facilitated by Kenyan banks and government. He named leading Kenya commercial banks for fueling the conflict such as the Kenya Commercial Bank, Equity and Stanbic banks.

The protesters who were joined by South Sudanese nationals living in Kenya later moved from Uhuru Park and staged protests outside branches of the banks in Nairobi. “War criminals are looting South Sudan,” one placard read while another screamed: “Stop stealing our gold money.”Mwangi said that the world has for too long either ignored the war on South Sudan or considered it a simple power struggle between the factions of President Salva Kiir and his ex- deputy, Riek Machar. “While the humanitarian crisis deepens and millions face starvation bank accounts of certain south Sudanese are handling millions of dollar worth of transactions are growing fat. It is clear that banks of Kenyan and Uganda are handling millions of dollars’ worth of transactions that reward generals and warlords not just to continue massacring their own people, but able to profit from it through illegal trade in oil and teak wood smuggling,” he said.