- Title: KENYA: Thousands displaced in land clashes in western Kenya
- Date: 18th December 2007
- Summary: VARIOUS OF POLICE TRUCK IN THE DISTANCE BURNT HOUSES VARIOUS OF COW EATING FROM BURNT HOUSES KENYA RED CROSS OFFICIALS AND JOURNALISTS TALKING TO LOCAL RESIDENTS (SOUNDBITE) (Kiswahili) FATHER OF MURDERED BOY, DAN MOSES, SAYING: "We are asking ourselves, if the government can do this to small children, what about to adults like me?" CHILDREN LOOKING ON VARIOUS OF BURNT OUT
- Embargoed: 2nd January 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA9E5ZEQV6P96XTOXDQ4YE4IJQ1
- Story Text: Crops rot in the fields, farms and schools are abandoned, the black hulks of burned houses dot the landscape.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed and many women raped.
On a dirt road climbing up through green countryside, a heavily armed patrol of police troops stares nervously into the thick bush, wary of a militia ambush.
Burundi? Congo? Rwanda? No, the scene is being played out in Kenya, a country usually seen as a haven of stability in a region scarred by genocide, wars and famine.
Here in a beautiful landscape of rolling green hills in the west of the country, a dirty and under-reported war is being fought far from the international spotlight.
While Kenya has made major economic strides in recent years and has growing democratic credentials, insecurity is one of the biggest concerns of voters ahead of a December 27 national election.
As elections have done, ever since the first multi-party vote in 1992, the campaign has worsened the mayhem.
But the land war in the Mt. Elgon region bordering Uganda has deeper roots and has caused the greatest bloodshed.
An allocation of government land in July 2006 unleashed a war between the Ndorobo and Soy clans of the Sabaot ethnic group that has killed around 300, mostly civilians.
More than 60,000 terrorised people have fled their homes in an area originally populated by 170,000.
A Reuters team visiting the worst-hit Kopsiro division recently saw the blackened remains of at least 15 huts which, locals said had been burned by police hunting a militia that is fighting against the land scheme.
As the police combat unit moved away, men emerged from hiding and said two children and an 18-year-old youth had been shot dead during a police raid the previous day.
Dan Moses, the father of an eight-year-old, said he ran away when police arrived and when he returned his son, who had been with his grandmother, was shot through the eye.
"We are asking ourselves, if the government can do this to small children, what about to adults like me?" said Dan Moses speaking to officials of the Kenya Red Cross as his neighbours watched.
Opponents say the land was divided corruptly and favoured the Ndorobos and government supporters, at the expense of the more numerous Soy, many of who were evicted from areas they had farmed for 30 years.
The 2006 Chepyuk resettlement awarded plots to only 1,700 families out of 7,500 applicants.
A Soy militia, called the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF), has killed Ndorobos and anybody associated with the government, including the brother of the local MP.
The conflict has now escalated, with criminal gangs, revenge killings, political manipulation and a tough police campaign to defeat the SLDF adding to the suffering.
Aid workers say the civilian population is caught between the SLDF and the police who are widely accused, despite official denials, of burning the houses of alleged militia sympathisers.
At the local Cheptais shopping centre, hundreds of displaced people queue to have their names registered so that they can receive food and relief supplies from the Kenya Red Cross.
They accuse the police of violence.
Now an area that once exported produce to Uganda and other parts of Kenya is dependent on 540 tonnes of food aid each month.
District Officer, Gideon Ombongi, second highest government official in the Mt. Elgon area, denied the police had killed anyone and blamed all violence on the SLDF.
There is little sign of a solution. Many locals believe the land allocation must be reversed but Ombongi says the conflict will only end when the SLDF are defeated.
Nearby, ashes smouldered in the deserted shells of two mud and wattle huts where five families lived until the previous day. It's a tragic warning that the land issue must be resolved soon - or more innocent civilians will continue to suffer. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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