NAIROBI – The government has urgently sought the assistance of the UN to evacuate Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetangula and nine other Kenyans stuck in Mali following a coup. A mutiny by rowdy soldiers protesting the handling of a Tuareg insurgency in the northern part of that country, turned into a coup. Minister Wetangula, ironically, was in Mali attending an African Union security meeting and was about to leave his hotel for the airport when the storm broke.Wire reports yesterday indicated that the soldiers had overturned the government of President Amadou Toumani Toure and suspended the countrys constitution. Updates on Wetangulas Facebook said the situation was getting worse by the minute, with shooting raging in the streets of the capital city Bamako. He said a nationwide curfew had been imposed.The minister and three officials; B.Munzala, G.Ngeno and A.Safari, and Kenya Airways area manager Sally Osuke are among the Kenyans holed up at a hotel in the city. Other Kenyans are those working with the UN and other international NGOs in Bamako. We are in communication. We have not established if there are any other Kenyans living/working here, said Wetangula, adding that they were in touch with the AU.Foreign Affairs assistant minister Richard Onyonka said the hotel where Wetangula and the rest of the Kenyas were was under the control of the UN troops. We have contacted the UN and they have assured us that should they manage to get a flight into Mali, the minister is among those it has listed for evacuation, the ministrys head of political affairs Patrick Wamoto said.One of the officials who had accompanied Wetangula for the meeting, Kenyas envoy to the AU Dr Monica Juma, was able to get out as her flight left Bamako for Addis Ababa early Wednesday morning. We are in touch not only with the UN but all other missions including the AU, Nigeria and France who have large numbers of their nationals and have been requested to help us evacuate any Kenyan they come across, Wamoto said.He said the government was liaising with Kenya Airways to provide more information of any Kenyan who was on their waiting list for transit at Bamako. Court of Appeal judge Philip Waki, who was in Sierra Leone, is stranded in Freetown as he could not travel to Mali from where he was to take a connecting flight to Nairobi.
