Among the hundreds of tourists vacationing in Watamu and among residents and Kenyans themselves, including the resort's British-born community, there is mute disbelief, coupled with great despondency.
The very sad and unfortunate story of Italian tourist Michela Boldrini had excited and moved everyone, so much so that for three days a chain of solidarity had begun via social media that, amidst inevitable fake news and the classic "everyone says what they like," had brought residents and tourists to the Aga Khan Hospital in Mombasa to donate blood for the necessary transfusions, vital for the girl who was getting worse every day.
According to what we have learned from sources at the health facility, Michela Boldrini had developed infections and in the hours before her death, even cardiac arrest.
Meanwhile, a family in Watamu had even provided a helicopter to shuttle between Watamu and Mombasa and bring in Rh-negative donors, Michela's blood type, while those who showed up at the Aga Khan yesterday had kept the flame of hope burning for one more day.
The portal of Italians in Kenya Malindikenya.net had received dozens and dozens of offers of donations, hoping they could also be made in Malindi and Watamu, but as Alpitour assistance had indirectly conveyed to us, it was only possible to donate blood in the hospital in Mombasa.
In the drama of the disappearance of a young tourist, the only unfortunate serious burn victim among 182 tourists who were guests at the Barracuda Inn, we must record the important, often fundamental, solidarity among those who live in and frequent Watamu, which relieves somewhat from other less uplifting and more worrisome episodes, such as the looting during the burning of the two resorts, by a certain type of "people" who, despite often receiving it, solidarity does not even know where it belongs. Fortunately, Kenyans are by no means all like that, but unfortunately those "kind of people" crowd the beaches of the resorts.