Suffering as 2,000 evicted from Kipini Forest

Miriam Matei in a dilapidated make-shift IDP camp at Shauri Moyo Catholic Church. She is among more than 2,000 people evicted from Kipini Forest by Kenya Forest Service guards. [Photo: Paul Gitau/Standard]

By Paul Gitau

Lamu, Kenya: More than 2,000 landless people who were recently evicted from Kipini Forest in Lamu have accused Kenya Forest Service (KFS) officers of failing to obey a court order suspending their eviction.

They claimed KFS disobeyed the court order issued in Mombasa on April 25, and threw them out of the forest and pillaged their property.

Through their spokesman Antony Chomba, the land victims also claimed yesterday that forest rangers have set their houses on fire despite the court order.

Displacement camp

Mr Chomba said the court order suspended the eviction pending the determination of the dispute.

“We served the KFS officers but to my surprise, they said they would not honour the court directive and even threatened to lock us up,” he said from a displacement camp near a primary school in Kipini.

The evictees claim about 40 people thrown out of the forest have been arrested and charged with trespassing in a Malindi court.

The Standard learnt that about six people are nursing serious injuries after they were allegedly attacked by the forest guards carrying out the eviction.

Over the weekend, The Standard toured Kipini and witnessed the evictees’ living conditions.

Heavily armed forest guards were on patrol in the area.

Two evictees showed a letter from Kipini Police Post where they reported alleged assault by the KFS officers and claimed that police at Witu Police Station had denied them P3 forms.

KFS officers have also destroyed hundreds of acres of farm crops.

No settlement

Those evicted are from Mkoma Moja, Mabondeni, Mwingi Raha, Kisuliani and Marafa Raha and are currently staying in temporary camps at Shauri Moyo Catholic Church and Kisuliani IDP camps.

The evictees appealed to the Government to urgently intervene as they did not have an alternative place to live.

The KFS officer in charge of the evictions, Samuel Lendilo, declined to comment on the matter, saying he was not allowed to speak to the Press.

Mr Lendilo referred The Standard to the director of the Kenya Forest Service.

Tana Delta County Commissioner Mike Kimoko said the forest had been gazetted and no human settlement will be allowed there.

He said KFS had issued a notice for those who had invaded the forest to leave but they had failed to honour it.

The evictees, however, said they had been issued with a two-week ultimatum that had lapsed by the time they were being informed. The evictions began immediately and most did not manage to salvage even their personal belongings.

Two year ago, a colourful State ceremony to officially launch the gazettement of the forest was halted at the last minute after the local people opposed the move, saying they were never consulted.

Tension ran high as thousands of locals, led by the then area MP Danson Mungatana, vowed to resist any attempts by KFS to gazzette the forest, saying such a move would see more than 2,000 families displaced.

The event, which was to have been presided over by the Forestry Assistant Minister at the time, Joseph Nanok, and Permanent Secretary Mohamed wa Mwachai, was delayed for more than four hours.

The assistant minister and delegation from the Forestry ministry pleaded in vain with the area MP and locals to allow them to continue with the launch, promising to address their grievances.

Private ranch

Mungatana questioned how a private ranch in the area had changed ownership and ended up as a gazetted forest.

Last month, Tana River Governor Hussein Dado toured the area and asked KFS to suspend the impending evictions to allow his government to look for an alternative area to settle those who would be affected.

The governor, however, asked the locals to stop invading forests.

Kipini Forest covers 100 square kilometres stretching from Witu and is the home of various species of wildlife including elephants, zebras, cheetahs, wild dogs, buffaloes, hippopotamus and more than 400 bird species.