Meet the Kenyan Christians worshipping in the shadow of al-Shabaab

On a normal Sunday in Kenya, churches are filled to the brim. Music pours out of open doors; worshippers arrive in their finest clothes; prayer is loud and public. But in Mandera, a dusty town less than a kilometre from the Somali border, worship looks very different. Here, going to church begins with a knock on a heavy metal gate and giving a guard, who is carrying a machine gun, your ID card. 

Mandera is almost entirely Muslim. Of its roughly 40,000 residents, no more than a couple of thousand are Christian. Every church here stands on government land - on police compounds, beside prisons or on the military base - and security is heavy. This is not for convenience, their pastors tell me, but for survival. It is what life looks like for Christians living in the shadow of al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist terrorist organisation linked to al-Qaeda. 

The town sits on a geographical, religious and political fault line at the intersection of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Borders are porous. Al-Shabaab has long viewed Kenya as both an enemy and an opportunity - a Christian-majority nation whose military interventions in Somalia make it a symbolic target. The terrorist group emerged in 2006 in the aftermath of the Somali civil war. Initially, attacks in Kenya were limited, but they have increased steadily over time. In 2011, Kenya sent troops into Somalia and violence in the border region rose sharply.  

Christian minorities in places like Mandera are especially exposed. In 2015, 148 Christian students were massacred in the town of Garissa; three years earlier, 15 people were killed in attacks on two churches in the same city. In Mandera, violence consists mainly of bombing attacks and kidnappings. 

‘We are candidates for death’

Pastor Patrick Ongaya has preached in Mandera since 2003. When he first arrived, life was difficult but not deadly. “People did not accept us,” he says. Stones were thrown. Services were disrupted. Yet violence rarely crossed into killing. That changed in 2010, when al-Shabaab started targeting the region. 

Today, Ongaya’s church sits inside the police barracks, protected by tyre-spikes, metal barriers and armed guards. It holds around 200 people and is the largest church in Mandera. “We pastors are candidates for death,” he says. Yet he has never considered leaving. “I will only go if God tells me to go. If I must die, I will die.” 

Christians here cannot travel safely on the roads surrounding the town. Al-Shabaab is known for hijacking buses and singling out non-Muslims for execution or kidnapping. Interfaith forums that once existed — bringing pastors and imams together to discuss social issues like drugs and homelessness — have all but disappeared.  

The pastor teaches us not to fear violence or even death, because God is waiting for us

Wahui Rumbah, pastor of an evangelical church bordering the local prison, tells a similar story. Two soldiers guard his service on Sunday. If believers want to pray outside those hours, for instance at night, they must do so in darkness without raising their voices. 

“I once asked for permanent security,” Rumbah says. “They told me: don’t try it. You will only tempt danger.” In Mandera, prayer has become something hidden. The walls are not symbolic, but necessary. “We do not want protection,” Rumbah says. “We want freedom.”  

Rumbah himself is a former Muslim who converted to Christianity. For him, preaching in Mandera is a calling - but also a constant risk. Every time violence flares, attendance plunges. “The people run,” he says. “Then slowly, they come back again.” 

Faith under pressure 

For Daniel Muturi, a Presbyterian pastor who has served in Mandera since 1997, the shift has been stark. In his early years, mobs attacked his church with stones. His windows were shattered. But no one was killed. “Now,” he says, “an attack can mean death.” 

Today, his church has two guards each Sunday — at least on paper. “They sit on their phones,” he says. “Before the service ends, they are gone.” 

Choir rehearsals were stopped because the singing attracted attention. Services were limited to two hours because police said they could not guarantee protection for longer. “They told us: if you do more, we cannot protect you,” Muturi says. “But we went on, with God as our protection.” 

I will only go if God tells me to go. If I must die, I will die

Alexander Muatu, a schoolteacher posted here in 2014, comes from a part of Kenya where church attendance is normal and safe. In Mandera, it became something dangerous. “At first I was afraid. Sometimes too afraid to go,” he says. But over time, his fear hardened into faith. “The pastor teaches us not to fear violence or even death,” Muatu says. “Because God is waiting for us.”  

Fear, he says, drives people both away from church, and toward it. After attacks, attendance rises because praying seems like the only solution. It is the paradox of persecution: danger prunes the Church but also deepens it. 

An impossible task

Kenya’s government insists it is doing all it can. Troops patrol. Intelligence units monitor threats. Churches receive guards. Yet pastors speak of protection that feels symbolic rather than real. Resources are thin. Distances are huge. The enemy is mobile and embedded within civilian populations. 

The protection of Christians thus remains a tricky point. All of the officials who were asked - from the police commissioner in Mandera to the regional governor - refused to comment on the matter. 

In the past six months, al-Shabaab attacks have become less prevalent as they are under heavy attack from Somalian government forces in their home country. But 15 years of danger and insecurity has left its mark. It has cost pastors their sense of safety. It costs congregations the joy of open praise. It costs believers the right to pray aloud. And yet the churches remain.