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PC to probe report on 5,000 refugees
DAILY NATION
Story by PETER NG’ETICH and DAVID MAFABI
Publication Date: 4/19/2007
Kenyan authorities have promised to investigate reports that 5,000 people had fled to Uganda following clashes in Mt Elgon.
Western Provincial Commissioner Abdul Mwasera said the Government was not aware that those displaced from Mt Elgon had fled to Uganda.
More than 60,000 people have been displaced due to the flare-up between Ndorobo and Soy clans over land dispute. At least 150 people have been killed since September last year.
Speaking by phone yesterday, Mr Mwasera said: “I can’t say yes or no (to the reports of Kenyan refugees in Uganda). It has not come to our attention but I will find out.” He was reacting to media reports in Uganda that more than 5,000 Kenyans were camping in Bumbo, Bubutu, Kaato, Bupoto and Buwabwala in Uganda after fleeing the troubled Mt Elgon area.
Headcount evidence
While speaking to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees representatives in Uganda on April 17, an official for Manafwa District, Mr Charles Walimbwa, said a headcount had established that 5,013 Kenyans had fled to Uganda through Lwakhakha boarder.
Speaking on Tuesday at Manafwa District council hall, Mr Walimbwa revealed that the Kenyans were living in deplorable conditions with no shelter, no food, no medicine and most of them are congested in temporal structures constructed on land that has been leased to them by Ugandans.
He said whereas at first the refugees could afford to rent houses for their families, most of them had run short of money and had resorted to tilling land for Ugandans and fetching water in exchange for maize flour.
The Monitor in Uganda quoted Mr Walimbwa as saying the Kenyan refugees were living on a mug of porridge a day as the wage for labouring on farms for the Ugandan landlords.
The UNHCR team promised to release a report about the situation and conditions of the Kenyan refugees and hand it over to the UNHCR headquarters in Nairobi for
action.
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