Kenya vs. Terrorism in 5 Stats

Every week for TIME, I look at the data behind emerging political trends. Today: a version of my Kenya analysis, adapted for LinkedIn.

The world expressed its sympathy and outrage following the April 2 attacks at Garissa University College in Kenya. The horrific act claimed the lives of 147 people, and yet the global reaction was strikingly muted compared to the outpouring that followed the Charlie Hebdo tragedy in France. These 5 stats help make sense of the terrorism dynamics in Kenya.

1. Terrorist attacks are nothing new for Kenya

The fight against al-Shabab in East Africa is a regional effort. While Kenya provides fewer personnel to the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia than Uganda, Ethiopia or Burundi do, it bears the brunt of al-Shabab’s attacks outside Somalia. Since 2012, the group has killed over 600 people in Kenya. There has been only one major attack outside Somalia’s borders that didn’t target Kenya: the 2010 Kampala bombings.

(The Boston Globe, Council on Foreign Relations, The New York Times, The Washington Post; infographic h/t from The New York Times)

2. History matters

Muslim communities in Kenya, who account for roughly 10% of the country’s population, lag in development due to limited public and private investment, giving rise to local tension and instability. The northeast region of the country (where most Kenyan Muslims are located) borders Somalia, and has less than 100 miles of tarmacked roads. This lack of development allows Kenyan-Somali clan conflict and banditry to flourish. Past conflicts in the area include the 1980 Garissa massacre and the 1984 Wagalla massacre, which resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 ethnic Somalis.

(The Guardian, The World Post, Aljazeera,Climate Change and Security Conference, The New York Times, infographic h/t from Pew Research Center)

3. If good fences make good neighbors…

…then Kenya has a serious problem. A porous border helps Al-Shabab target Kenya. The Kenyan government has announced plans to build a wall along parts of its 424-mile border with Somalia that could cost as much as $17 billion. But Kenya’s police force is among the most corrupt in East Africa and members of al-Shabab can easily buy passage and visas from officials. Payments to officers made up almost 50% of all bribes in Kenya in 2014. Garissa in particular was the victim of more than a fifth of al-Shabab’s attacks in Kenya between 2009 and 2013.

Kenya Terrorist Incidents Over Time:

(Global Terrorism Database, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, BBC; infographic h/t from the Global Terrorism Database)

4. Terrorism: now with salary benefits

Al-Shabab translates to ‘the youth’ in Arabic, an appropriate name for a group that recruits younger people with limited employment opportunities in the region. Roughly 25% of al-Shabab’s 7,000-9,000 forces are Kenyan, according to BBC news. Many of them were attracted to al-Shabab’s payout to new recruits, which was reportedly more than $1,000. To compare, the average monthly wage in Kenya is $76 ($912 annual), and some 70% of working class youths are currently unemployed.

(BBC News (a), BBC News (b), Reuters, Aljazeera, infographic h/t from UNDP Discussion Paper)

5. Less money, more problems

The siege at Garissa lasted nearly 15 hours. Yet security forces didn’t enter the university until 11 hours into the crisis. The reason was primarily logistical—the two fixed-wing planes that security forces flew in were too small for all of the officers and their equipment, and no police choppers were available. Despite the recent rise in terrorist attacks, anti-terror police units in Nairobi have a budget as low as $735 per month for operations, and police officers are paid around $200 per month. The result of these budget constraints is that Kenya’s police force numbers only 60,000, whereas over 300,000 people are employed as private security guards throughout Kenya.

 (The Boston Globe, Daily Mail, Daily Nation, Aljazeera, photo h/t from The World Post)

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Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, global research professor at New York University and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.