Kenya to start construction of new port that will also serve landlocked S. Sudan and Ethiopia

(Mar 02, 2012, NAIROBI, Kenya)--East African heads of state, including South Sudan president Salva Kiir, attended a ceremony Friday to mark the beginning of construction for a controversial new port in Kenya’s eastern coastal region of Lamu.

Villagers fear the port may ruin idyllic beaches that draw Hollywood stars to the nearby island of Lamu year after year. But Kenya hopes the port will make the country a regional telecommunications and transportation hub. 

 

Kiir said the port will be a terminal for an alternative oil pipeline through Kenya, freeing South Sudan from its dependence on the infrastructure of Sudan, its former ruler in the north. South Sudan seceded from Sudan in July.

Landlocked South Sudan stopped pumping oil through Sudan in January, accusing the government in Sudan’s capital Khartoum of stealing hundred millions of dollars of oil revenue. Sudan responded Wednesday by bombing two oil wells in the south, Kiir said.

Kiir thanked Kenya for signing a memorandum of understanding to allow the new country to construct an oil pipeline from South Sudan’s capital of Juba to the port. Read more from The Washington Post »

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