Hope for evictees as State embarks on resettlement

Members of the Ogiek community, evicted by the Government from the Mau Forest, move to a new camp recently in Nakuru County.  [PHOTO: BONIFACE THUKU/STANDARD]

By Vincent Bartoo

Nandi, Kenya: The Government has embarked on a process to resettle Ogiek and Ndorobo forest evictees living by the side of roads in Nandi County.

This is after The Standard published a feature last week highlighting the plight of the evictees, living in deplorable conditions.

The feature, Forest evictees seek rescue from roadside ordeal, told of how the communities had been forced to bury their kin secretly in thickets because they didn’t have land on which to designate proper burial sites.

The Interior ministry dispatched officers from the Department of Special Programmes in Nairobi to profile the squatters as a precursor to their resettlment. The team, headed by a director in the department Mr Joseph Macharia, carried out a three-day profiling exercise that ended on Monday.

“We were sent from Nairobi to profile them, that’s all. I cannot tell you when or where they will be resettled. That is for the Government to decide,” Macharia told The Standard on phone yesterday.

The evictees from the two marginalised communities were required to produce their identity cards during the exercise.

Those who were 18 and older during their 2005 eviction from Serengonik Forest were registered for resettlement, in keeping with a new State policy on resettlement of forest dwellers.

“We had over 800 families from both the Ogiek and Ndorobo communities registering and we are grateful that at least there is hope that our misery will end,” said William Buigut, their spokesman.

He said the officials asked them to identify and propose land on which the Government could resettle them.

Benjamin Yego, an Ogiek elder, proposed that the Government hives off part of the Agricultural Development Corporation  land in Kimwani, Nandi or some county trust land in Kapsabet for their resettlement.

Yego added that they would also consider resettlement in either Uasin Gishu or Trans Nzoia counties, should the Nandi option be unworkable.

Buigut thanked The Standard for highlighting their plight and Nandi East DC Irene Ondeng for presenting their case to the Government.

“No one took our plight seriously the way you (The Standard) and the DC have done. We have approached local leaders here and they have ignored us despite voting for them,” he said.

Inherited Challenge

Buigut cited a case where an MP from Nandi asked their representatives to travel to Nairobi so he could facilitate a meeting with the Interior minister.

“The evictees raised the little money they had for our transport. When we reached Nairobi, the MP did not pick calls or respond to our text messages. It was the most cruel thing to do to suffering people. We just had to return home,” he said.

Buigut however said Nandi Senator Stephen Sang is now assisting the evictees through the office of deputy President William Ruto.

Poverty has ravaged the 460-plus families since 2005 when they were kicked out of Serengonik Forest.

Both the aged and the young have suffered frequent malaria attacks as well as pneumonia and other respiratory infections. “I have buried three children in the forest because I had no alternative,” said Sally Koech, one of those evicted.

Koech claimed her children succumbed to malaria.

The terrain is steep, temperatures low and when it rains, the squatters are exposed to the elements. “This time round, they should consider giving us alternative settlements,” she said. Nandi deputy governor Dominic Biwot has admitted that the resettlement is a challenge that had been inherited by the new county government.