Two years after the Mathare floods, survivors are safe but still scarred

Wendy Ochieng, a survivor of the Mathare floods in Nairobi. [Rosa Agutu, Standard]

When the rains returned to Nairobi this year, 22-year-old Wendy Ochieng did something she had never been able to do while living along the Mathare River: she slept through the night. Two years after floodwaters swept through her neighbourhood, forcing her family to leave everything behind, she now lives on higher ground. But safety has come at a cost, the trauma of that night is still raw.

Walking along Mathare River two years later, the river tells a different story. The crowded rows of iron-sheet houses that once stood metres from the water are gone. In their place is a wide, open corridor cleared after the floods and demolitions that followed.