Kenya attacks open old wounds

Most of the 224 who died were Kenyans

By Ishbel Matheson BBC, Nairobi

Julie Ogoyi was partially blinded when the United States embassy in Nairobi was blown up on 7 August 1998.

Two hundred and twenty-four people - mostly Kenyan - were killed in the bombing and 4,500 were injured.

Twice a week, Julie makes a pilgrimage to a small, green park, in the middle of Nairobi's frenetic streets.

Nairobi ceremony at the bomb site

"It comforts me to be here," she says, tucking her feet under a park-bench. " It reminds me that good can come out of evil."

Julie is sitting in the memorial garden, amid flowering vines and young trees, built on the site of the former American embassy in Nairobi. In front of her, an arc-shaped monument is inscribed with the names of the dead.

God will provide

The US Congress allocated a fund of $37 million to Kenya and $13 million to Tanzania, where the US embassy was blown up simultaneously.

The money helped re-start businesses closed down by the bombing, paid for some victims' medical costs, post-traumatic counselling and school fees of orphaned children.

At the Medical Assistance Programme for bomb survivors, Mary Mwanza clutches a brown paper bag, bulging with six different kinds of medication. After the blast, Mary spent a year off work.

In that time, she also miscarried. She now suffers from high blood pressure and asthma.

Mary could not afford to pay for the medicines herself - they would cost a third of her monthly salary. For the moment, the drugs are free - courtesy of the US Government.

When asked what she will do when the Americans stop paying, she shrugs her shoulders: "God will provide".

In 2000, 850 victims were receiving help from the programme - by September 2002 it had dropped to 230 a month.

Embassy fortress

The 1998 bombings in Africa were an early taste of the power and reach of the al-Qaeda network - and a forerunner of the much bigger atrocity in America on 11 September.

Yet while security measures in Western capitals have been stepped up post-11 September, in Nairobi there is little visible evidence of heightened vigilance.

Nairobi had its own ground zero

The public relations officer at Kenya's International airport, Jomo Kenyatta airport, Selena Atieno, said: "There have been a lot of changes since 11 September".

However, she declined to specify what these were, citing "security reasons".

In a leafy suburb of Nairobi, a new US embassy rises - fortress-like - from the red African soil. No expense has been spared here on security.