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Honey-hunting Ogiek tribe caught
up in violence
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL
30 January 2008
Leaders of the honey-hunting Ogiek tribe have reported that they
are being targeted in the escalating post-election violence in
Kenya.
An Ogiek leader said today, ‘We the Ogiek people have suffered
police shooting, intimidations and threats…. Currently five of our
youth have been shot and injured as hundreds of families fled
their homes…. We cannot access food, shelter or medicines.’
There have been allegations of rape of Ogiek women by police, and
Ogiek houses have been burned down.
The Ogiek are one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer peoples in
East Africa. They live in the Mau mountain forest, overlooking the
Rift Valley. They gather honey from beehives which they make from
hollow logs and place in the high branches of the forest trees.
The Ogiek have been struggling for many years to resist eviction
from their forest, and to protect it from settlers, loggers and
tea plantations.
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