Squatters clash with surveyors on disputed land

By Joseph Masha

Kilifi County

Over 600 families at Shariani in Kilifi County chased away private surveyors who had gone with armed police officers to their 2.05-hectare beach land to survey it.

The squatters claimed a prominent politician in Mombasa County had sent the surveyors to sub-divide the land.Trouble started when the villagers armed with crude weapons confronted the private surveyors demanding to know who had sent them.

Led by the chairman of Mkombozi Society Pastor Donald Mzungu, the squatters said they had a court injunction from Mombasa High Court on the land pending investigation into who its legal owner is.

“We went to court so that this issue could be solved but yesterday we got shocked to see private surveyors coming to work on the land,” he said.

Pastor Munga of Shariani Pentecostal Church said the people have been living on the land since 1952 without any interference, until 2010 when ownership wrangles emerged.

The clergy said they had discovered that the land had been allocated to a former coast PC by the former government.

Mombasa Politician

“The land ought to have been allocated to the squatters who have been living on it,” he said.

According to Munga, the former PC then sold the land to a Mombasa politician, who was now trying to claim ownership illegally, adding that an agent of the politician had approached some of the squatters and intimidated them so that they could vacate the land.

Among those who are targeted for immediate eviction from the disputed land is Mr Juma Thoya and his family who have been living on the piece of land since 1972.

“I settled on this piece of land in 1972 and since then I have never seen anybody coming to claim it until 2010,” he said.