Calls to resolve impasse on landslide victims

By Michael Wesonga

KEIYO, KENYA: Former Cabinet minister wants the stalemate on the forcible eviction of 10,000 Keiyo landslide victims a fortnight ago resolved.

Nicholas Biwott has urged the Head of Civil Service Francis Kimemia to arbitrate in the matter pitting the ministries of Forestry and Special Programmes.

This follows eviction of families from unoccupied government premises at Sabor and a Kenya Forest Service sub-station by forest guards on last week.

Playing politics

The former Keiyo South MP termed the evictions unfortunate.

Mr Biwott said it was quite disturbing for government to play politics with critical aspects of its citizens even while still undergoing immeasurable misery, after losing their loved ones to the calamity.

“How can you inflict further suffering to people still mourning the deaths of their kinsmen? The citizens are being forced back to dangerous zones declared unfit for human habitation by geologists that they were evading in the first place,” he complained.

The victims were displaced from their homes in the hanging valleys of the Kerio Valley escarpments by perennial destructive landslides that killed 14 people two weeks ago.

Illegal occupation

“We were ambushed by armed forest guards who consequently ejected us out of the buildings over what they termed as illegal occupation,” said Philip Kibor, one of the evictees.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi and Eldoret North MP William Ruto have separately visited the displaced families.

 They have promised their immediate relocation to safer settlements.

Ms Murugi advised the families to migrate and set camps on higher grounds while awaiting government’s response.

The Prime Minister directed the Special Programmes Ministry to urgently relocate the displaced persons to alternative land secured by the Government to avert similar catastrophes in the future.

Politically instigated

Area DC Arthur Bunde confirmed the evictions but said there were several consultations among various key players for a quick resolve to the conflict.

However, local leaders have claimed that the evictions were politically instigated.

The families had been camping at Toroplongon, Chemwabul and Chororget primary schools since the disaster that killed 14 people, but were moved to the forest after the schools re-opened.

But last week, armed forest guards kicked them out of the water catchment, further worsening their woes.

Simon Kipchumba, a survivor of Chemwabul landslide, said the local Provincial Administration had informed them that a parcel of land to resettle them had been found.

He added that the chief had told them they should be moved since learning at the institutions they had been camping had to continue.

“But we were shocked when a contingent of armed forest guards arrived and ordered us out, saying they had been instructed to not allow us camp there,” said Kipchumba.