World
US President Barack Obama flew into Kenya late on Friday for his first presidential visitto his father's homeland, aiming to boost trade and securityties.
Updated : Jul 24, 2015, 11:51 PM IST
US President Barack Obama flew into Kenya late on Friday for his first presidential visitto his father's homeland, aiming to boost trade and securityties.
Obama's Air Force One plane landed in the evening in theKenyan capital, where he will co-host a conference on boostingentrepreneurs in Africa before travelling on to Ethiopia.
After being greeted by President Uhuru Kenyatta and other top Kenyan officials, Obama was whisked through the capital.
Hours before Obama's arrival, police blocked major roads and emptied streets of traffic in the usually congested capital as part of a huge security operation. In the darkness, excited Kenyans lined parts of the route to his hotel, cheering Obama's cavalcade passed by.
Kenya is a vital ally of the West in the battle against the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, and Obama is likely to focus talks in Nairobi on security cooperation.
The al Qaeda-linked group was behind an attack on Nairobi's upscale Westgate shopping centre in 2013, killing at least 67 people, as well as an attack in April at a Kenyan university near the Somali border that left 148 people dead.
In Nairobi, Obama will preside at a Global Entrepreneurship Summit, pay tribute to victims and survivors of the 1998 U.S.embassy bombing and dine with Kenyatta, whose indictment by the International
Criminal Court for crimes against humanity largely barred Obama from visiting sooner. Charges have been dropped.
Deputy President William Ruto, still facing similar charges in The Hague-based court, was not at the airport reception ceremony. He denies having had a role in fomenting violence after the disputed 2007 election.
In the year before that vote, Obama visited Kenya when he was still a senator. On this trip as president, he is not expected to travel to the village most closely associated withthe family name and where his father is buried.