Government starts resettling Mau evictees

By KARANJA NJOROGE

The Government has started resettling Mau Forest evictees more than two years after they were displaced.

Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi on Friday presided over the process of identifying 200 families who will be resettled at a 1,000-acre farm in Kipkabus, Eldoret.

The families evicted from the forest will be resettled together with 169 families drawn from the local community as part of an integrated resettlement process.

Ms Murugi said the 200 families made up of 25 people from each of the camps will be resettled at the farm within two weeks.

"The Government has decided to have those people evicted from the Mau and other forests resettled alongside the post-election violence IDPs," she said at Aon Primary School in Kuresoi. She said the Government had decided to incorporate some of the local families.

It was joy for the families who have been residing in makeshift structures on the forest cutline since they were ordered to leave the forest in November 2009.

"At last it seems the Government is serious about resettling uss. We hope the exercise is speeded up so that we move out of the squalid conditions we are living in," said Joshua Koech, the Kapkembu camp vice chairman.

Kuresoi MP Zakayo Cheruiyot who attended the function lauded the Government for finally making efforts to resettle the families.