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Kenyan Safari Doctors Risk Al-Shabab to Provide Remote Health Care

Ruud Elmendorp

   LAMU COUNTY, KENYA - In Kenya's remote island communities near the
   border with Somalia, the threat from al-Shabab militants has scared
   away most medical personnel. But one group of volunteers -- the Safari
   Doctors -- is braving the danger to provide much-needed health care to
   the area's most vulnerable in Lamu County.

   The care arrives in a classic wooden ship flying the Safari Doctors
   logo on its sail.

   The people here have always had less access to medicine than in urban
   areas, but when al-Shabab terrorists threatened the region starting in
   2011, the few clinics there were abandoned.

   Lamu-born Umra Omar, the founder of Safari Doctors,left her career in
   the U.S. in 2015 to help the women and children left behind.

   "For me because it was home and because I was a new mother myself,"
   Omar said. "Like seeing other mothers and seeing the need that was
   there, it just became a natural thing for Safari Doctors to take on
   from there."

   The Safari Doctors visit 12 islands each month, bringing health care to
   a population of 20,000 people.

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