Tororo Inland Port Kenya, who own the port and will operate it when completed. The port will serve as a storage area for containers of imports destined for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan and Eastern DRC. The port will replace the ten or so storage facilities used by Uganda, to store these containers prior to the clearance of customs and other importation procedures. It is expected that this will greatly decongest the port at Kilindini, Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, and cut down the time it takes for a container on a ship in Mombasa to arrive in Tororo, from 18 days to
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