Community living in fear of evictions

By Job Weru

A community, Yiaku Peoples Association, has expressed fears the Government intends to evict them from what members consider ‘ancestral land’. The community chairman, Issah Supuko, said the Government’s move to post guards to Mukogodo forest was a pointer to their pending eviction.

"We feel the Government is looking at ways of evicting us from the forest, which we have been conserving since 1979 when we ejected Government officers," said Supuko.

Supuko said the move would render the community members, whose culture and lifestyles are attached to the forest, homeless.

Other Yiaku elders and members of other minority communities including the Ogiek, Endorois, Il’chamus and Boranas accompanied Supuko.

Yiaku is a minority community, which lives in Mukogodo forest in Laikipia North District.

Mzee Stephen Leriman, an elder from Yiaku, said the community’s population was about 4,500, while they are faced with extinction due to wanton assimilation into Maasai and Samburu cultures.

The Cushitic community is believed to have settled in the 74,000-acre forest some 4,000 years ago.

"Mukogodo forest is one of the largest indigenous forests in Eastern Africa, which is protected by the community with minimum Government involvement," said Leriman.

The Yiaku way of life is hunting and gathering and the forest provides for their livelihood.