Kiwayu squatters protest order to vacate

National Land Commission chairman Muhammad Swazuri

Residents of Kiwayu, a small remote island off the Lamu mainland, have protested an order by the National Land Commission (NLC) to relocate to Mkokoni.

Mkokoni is in Kiunga on Lamu's northern mainland.

But the residents, who moved to Kiwayu more than 50 years ago, claim NLC is trying to evict them in favour of well-connected individuals seeking beachfront land.

They want Governor Issa Timamy to protect them.

Some residents claim there may be a plot to evict then under the guise that the land belongs to the Kenya Wildlife Service as a marine reserve.

Kiwayu is a small island in the eastern part of the Lamu archipelago, situated in the Kiunga Marine National Reserve.

"The suggestion that we will be allocated land in Mkokoni in Kiunga is an insult, especially with the increased insecurity in the area," said Omar Mohammed, a Kiwayu resident.

Their ancestors

Mr Mohammed said the suggestion that Kiwayu settlers should agree to move to Kiunga was also an insult to some of their ancestors who escaped Kiunga in the 1960s because of the Shifta war.

More than 700 residents live in Kiwayu, a village home to local Bajunis who fled from various places especially in Kiunga because of the war.

They said KWS's claim to the land was questionable as some of their ancestors had been on the land since the 1920s. They added that their livelihoods as fishermen were at risk if they moved.

But in a telephone interview, NLC chairman Muhammed Swazuri told The Standard the residents were not sincere in their continued claim over the island.

"Kiwayu Island was established in 1974 as a marine reserve, even before the NLC was established," stated Dr Swazuri.

He denied claims that the commission had any ill motives behind the directive to move.