Mombasa Republican Council Mombasa Republican Council Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) is a separatist organisation based in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya. The group claims areas around Mombasa and the coastal area. It has both Muslim and Christian supporters. The leader of the group is Omar Mwamnuadzi and he was charged in 2014 along with 11 other members. However, the group denies claims by government officials that it has forged links with Somalia's militant Islamist group al-Shabaab. The Mombasa Republican Council was formed in 1999 to address perceived political and economic discrimination against the people of the coast province. The group traces its
Mombasa Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and China. 16th-century Portuguese voyager Duarte Barbosa claimed, "[Mombasa] is a place of great traffic and has a good harbour in which there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of which are bound from Sofala and others which come from Cambay and Melinde and others which sail to the island of Zanzibar." Vasco da Gama was the first known European to visit Mombasa, receiving a chilly reception in 1498. Two years later, the town was sacked by the Portuguese. In 1502, the sultanate became independent from Kilwa Kisiwani and