The Kenyan coastal shoreline is home to some of the continent’s best beaches. Every year, thousands of tourists flock to these beaches to sample these offerings.
But hidden on the same shoreline are some caves, and in those caves, lives are wasting away. Groups of men and women gather sheltered from the morning sweltering Mombasa heat.
They are here to get their daily fix of heroin, one of the drugs highly abused here. They go through the motions of getting the raw heroin to a consumable state, before injecting the addictive drug into their bloodstreams.
Unlike other addicts, this group uses new clean needles to inject the drugs; the needles and other supplies are brought here daily by Murad Swaleh, a peer educator and community worker.
Murad knows the ins and outs of these dens; twenty years ago, he was one of the users here. He says he had to pull himself out of the pits of drug abuse by his bootstraps and it wasn’t an easy task to do.
The journey into and out of drug addiction for 48-year-old Murad began a long time ago, and quite innocently too. The entry drug for him was cigarettes.
“Mimi nimeanza sigara, vitu ambavyo vinakubaliwa na serikali sigiara nimeanza nikiwa mdogo sana, nikiwa KG2 navuta sigara kwa sababu ya culture yetu ya mombasa marungi inakubaliwa, nikitu nilikuwa napewa nikitafuna, nakumbuka nikiwa class four, nilikuwa navuta bangi nilikuwa rude sana skuli kwa sababu ya ile stimu ya bangi,” he says.
Before long, he had outgrown cigarettes and graduated into the hard stuff, and into the hard life that comes with this usage.
“Niliingia kwa hard drugs, ambayo ni heroine na cocaine, pombe, pills is because of love, kuna msichana ambaye nilikuwa nimempenda sana sana, kitu kingine pia ni separation ya wazazi, hiyo ilinifanya kuwa mnyonge katika udogoni mwangu.”
Murad’s heroine abuse saw him spend the next 13 years of his life in and out of prison, as his life went down a dark hole, he lost his family, and his first wife was unable to put up with his erratic existence.
By this time, he had graduated to injecting the heroine into his bloodstream to maintain the high he needed to function.
“Niliishi kwa maisha ya kiunyonge sana, nakumbuka hata msiwhi nilikuwa na kaa kwa streets, nilifukuzwa mpaka nyumbani, nilikuwa nimefikia mahali nilikuwa worst sana, kwa sababu nilikuwa na withdrawal symptoms kwa sababu nilikuwa nakunywa alcohol na heroine na inject, nilikuwa nikisosa navomit damu,” says Murad.
The toll of his drug abuse was particularly hard, especially on his mother, Shumi Riziki Farhan.
“Nimekwenda naye mbio, kuanzia 2013 ilikuwa ni ngumu kwangu mimi kama mzazi, unajua kama mzazi mtoto anapotumia madawa huwa anaudhi kila mtu anachukua vitu anauza, anakumalizia vitu vyako nyumbani,” says Ms Farhan.
Murad has been clean for ten years now, and has turned his life around; a new family that he takes care of.
He now spends his days trying to keep those still using safe, while preaching against drug abuse among those who are at risk.
Murad’s current job sees him leave his family home every morning, to fulfil his new calling in life. At one of the outreach programs dealing with the drug menace, he collects his tools of trade: his office of the day is the drug dens along the shore of the Indian Ocean.
The users here eagerly wait for his arrival daily. They know that what he carries with him is their safety net; he brings them syringes and needles that they need to safely use the drugs, but beyond the supplies, he also counsels those not too far gone into the addiction.
”Si kazi rahisi, ni kazi ngumu, ni kuongea naye, kujua ni uraibu gani ambao anautimia, wengi wao kama wameingia kwa heroine hawasemi, lakini kutokana na experience yangu najua huyu saa hii ameinglia heroine ama yuko kwa bhangi ama yuko kwa pombe,” he says
The Reach Out Trust Centre, where Murad found a home after addiction believes that the work Murad and other officers like him do is critical to weed out the drug menace in the county of Mombasa.
“We are seeing some positive impact, we have peer-to-peer assistance, and those infected and affected are helping their peers to be able to come out of this dilemma,” he says.
Murad says he will continue spreading the anti-drug abuse gospel not just in his hometown of Mombasa but also in the larger coastal region that remains one of the most affected by hard drug abuse in the country.
Outside of Nairobi, Kilifi, Mombasa, Kwale and Kiambu account for 43 per cent of the estimated number of people who inject drugs in Kenya.
