Kenyan police step up security after Obama grandmother's burglary

Sep 11, 2008, 12:23 GMT

Nairobi - Kenyan police are stepping up security in the village of US presidential candidate Barack Obama's grandmother after thieves targeted her home, reports said Thursday.

Obama's grandmother Sarah, 86, said burglars broke in through her kitchen door in the western Kenyan village of Kogello and attempted to steal a solar panel from her roof.

'I don't understand the motive of the thieves, since nothing was stolen from the kitchen,' Sarah Obama told The Daily Nation.

The Obama family has become the centre of attention in Kenya since Barack Obama first began campaigning for the Democratic nomination.

Sarah Obama is worried that thieves may now target her more due to the success of her grandson.

'These are just people...who think that Obama has been sending me a lot of money,' she told the East African Standard.

Police said that nothing had been stolen and that security patrols would be initiated in Kogello village.

Senator Obama's father, the late Barack Obama Senior, was born in Kenya but fathered Barack while in the United States. The presidential candidate has only visited Kenya a handful of times.

His family connections are also being used for political capital, with US conservatives accusing him of failing to support his half- brother George, who lives in the Nairobi slum Huruma.

US conservative Dinesh D'Souza has started a 'George Obama Compassionate Fund' and is encouraging people to donate to pull the senator's brother out of poverty.

However, Obama's Kenyan relatives dismissed the fund, saying it was the result of negative publicity in the Western media and that no help was needed.