KFS evicts 700 families from forest

By Vincent Mabatuk

More than 700 families have been sleeping in the cold for the last 17 days after Kenya Forest Service (KFS) evicted them from Tegat Forest in Njoro District.

The agony of the families deepened yesterday when the officers flattened their shanties and ordered them to go back to their rural homes.

The families said they were settled by the Government in the area in 1997 and accused KFS and Njoro DC Mohamed Noor of failure to give them alternative land. During the eviction on March 3, KFS guards allegedly set more than 400 houses on fire.

Although the families have no documents to support their occupation, they claimed that the Government has for the last 15 years given them fake promises to resettle them.

Armed forest guards assisted by Administration Police yesterday re-evicted the families who had pitched camp at the forest cutline.

The families were pushed to private farms and on the public road.

The evictees now say they have nowhere to go and urged the Government to intervene.

Mr Julius Ruto, who is among those who watched their houses reduced to ashes, said hundreds of maize bags were also not spared.

Ruto claimed 300 families who moved from Tinet Forest following Government orders were each allocated five acres. "Initially, the families who were brought to the area were 1,080 in total and we want an explanation why the 700 have been locked out and now subjected to eviction," said Mr Ruto.

Ironically, owners of the houses brought down yesterday had already secured a court order stopping any further demolition.

Mr Wilson Kipkemoi said his effort to serve the officers with the court order were fruitless.

"Now my 60 bags of maize are outside and I do not know what I am going to do from now," he said.

The court order was signed and issued by Justice Roslyn Wendo at the High Court in Nakuru.

But speaking in his office, Mr Noor said the Government was not aware about the families and termed them as fake IDPs.

The DC insisted that the families only moved into the forest a week ago hoping to benefit from the ongoing resettlement of IDPs, especially those of Mau forest.

Head of Mau conservancy Mr Osbon Dunde insisted they would not allow the families back or reconstruct any structures in the area.