Kenya’s displaced people population is still growing, with the latest add-itions being 500 families in Magarini who were rendered homeless by flash floods. These are now in a camp on a highway linking Malindi to Garissa.

 Their plight is in the public eye, thanks to the dramatic pictures of the disaster in the coastal region. But it will not be long before they join the list of other displaced persons who are barely on the national radar.

The evictions that accompanied last year’s political crisis in parts of the country may have introduced the term ‘internally displaced persons’ into the national vocabulary, but IDPs have been a common phenomenon for myriads of reasons. Drought, disease, flooding, cattle rustling, political conflict and other factors have all conspired to push tens of thousands of people off their land.

Resettling them has proven a huge challenge, not just with the ‘political’ IDPs chased away from Rift Valley Province in the lead up to every multi-party era General Election as well as in the wake of last year’s poll. Flooding victims have been forced to abandon the farms they cultivate in the most dangerous areas and await resettlement as squatters. Others fleeing rustling and banditry had to seek refuge in foreign lands. Even IDPs created by the State cannot hope for a speedy fix: It took 20 years to settle the people evicted from Mt Kenya Forest. With others now being pushed out of various other catchment areas, there will be an even larger number of IDPs to deal with. The Government and the public must never lose sight of all these groups and the causes of their evictions.

Giving them a helping hand is just the first part of the solution. The Government should also address the underlying problem, be it proliferation of small arms, the fanning of tribal tensions, inadequate disaster preparation, livestock disease, climate change or whatever. This requires measures to forestall fresh waves of IDPs in each area and for each cause.

It will also be necessary to get to grips with corruption in relief and disaster management efforts by State agencies. Whether it is in the distribution of food rations or land and compensation, reports of partial payments, ghost beneficiaries, fake lists and so on are common. The culprits are often in the Provincial Administration, but private agencies hired to provide the services have also been caught in shady activity. With the rules for procurement now tightened for all but emergency purchases, the ad hoc nature of relief work and the locations involved often being remote, Government must be more vigilant on goings-on in their disaster management programmes.

While President Kibaki’s Kenyatta Day directive routed the last of the hold-outs from the last IDP camp at the Eldoret Showground, it did address the fate of the tens of thousands in ‘transit camps’ or in people’s homes. The former may have received some Government compensation, but with allegations of Provincial Administration mischief with registers for IDPs, nothing is certain. The latter, meanwhile, may have been shortchanged for having an alternative to the camps. Whether these matters are resolved is a matter for conjecture. With both out of sight, it may soon be out of Government’s mind as well.

We demanded answers when the first salvos were fired in a war over the IDP humanitarian relief fund. But there is still no clarity on the veracity of registers used or the integrity of the disbursement exercise. The ‘closure’ of an IDP camp must not be considered the end of the matter.

Transparency is also crucial in the purchase of land for resettlement of IDPs/squatters. The use of public funds to deal with this problem only began a few years ago, so the Government is still on a learning curve as to how to get the best solution. The questions this paper raised about the first major land purchase for the Settlement Trustee Fund in 2007 are now being echoed in admissions by State officials: Landowners are quoting extortionate prices. This raises the risks of collusion with the officials buying the land and must be guarded against.

Only when we can guarantee the rights of all displaced people, whatever the reason, can anyone speak of a just society.