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Displaced people to be taken
back to ancestral land
The Nation
Story by MIKE MWANIKI
5th Feb. 2008
The Government will soon repatriate the displaced people in
various camps in Nairobi and central Kenya to their ancestral
homes.
Special Programmes minister Naomi Shaban yesterday assured the
displaced people that they would be resettled at the Government’s
expense.
Hundreds of those displaced say they want to be repatriated to
their ancestral homes after enduring hardship in the camps for the
past two weeks. They moved into the camps after being forcefully
evicted from their homes.
Those in the camps said their children had dropped out of school
while they lacked basic amenities like food, water, medicine and
sanitation at the crowded camps.
Political differences
Dr Shaban said: “The Government is aware of the plight facing the
hundreds of the displaced people and will ensure that the wishes
of those who want to be repatriated will be fulfilled...
“We plan to begin undertaking this massive exercise by the middle
of this week by providing free transport to those wishing to be
repatriated to either Western or Nyanza and or any other province.”
More than 850 people have died, over 350,000 displaced and
property worth billions of shillings destroyed in an orgy of
violence that has rocked various parts of the country since the
conclusion of the General Election.
At Jamhuri Park Showground, scores of children from the volatile
Kibera slum appealed to President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila
Odinga to “resolve their political differences immediately” to
enable them resume learning.
Rowdy mob
Ten-year-old Nevine Kuboka, a former pupil of Antech Academy near
Kibera, says his school was razed by a rowdy mob in violence
linked to the disputed poll rocked the area last year.
A volunteer with the National Alliance of Churches, Mr George
Kamau, says more than 800 displaced people have moved into the
Jamhuri camp from Thika in the last three days.
At Kirathimo, the camp administrator Mrs Mary Wamaruri, asked the
Government to move the 600 displaced who wished to go back to
their ancestral land.
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