The same way English is both a language and ethnicity.
Peoples have been migrating for centuries back and forth between the Arabian Peninsula and the Kenya inland via the “Mwambao” British Protectorate area. There are still many land disputes which persist today from the time that Kenya became independent of the British in 1963 and before.
The Swahili did not know they were setting the stage for a major conflict that would last 347 years and disinherit them by creating the Ten-Mile Coastal Strip, a parcel of land belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar. Speaking to The Sunday Standard, the descendants of the pioneer Arabs immigrant fighters narrated how it all happened: “It all started when the Portuguese invaded Mombasa and sought to subjugate the port of Mombasa. The local people, who could not match their rivals’ military might, sought help from Omani. That is how our forefathers came,” recalls Mr Munir Mazrui, 58.
His brother, Mr Gharib Qasim Mazrui, adds: “The ten-mile strip starts from Vanga and extends to Lamu and Pate, the boundary of Somalia. In 1963, it was joined to Voi and other areas in the hinterland to form an administrative unit, the Coast Province.”
During colonial period, many people of Arab origin acquired titles to vast parcels of land within the ten-mile strip. But at independence, they left the country and left agents to collect rent for them. As a result, many people have been turned into rent-paying squatters.
Coast inhabitants experience absentee landlords and landlessness problems.
