Refugees Evicted from IDP Camp in Dead of Night

On Friday morning, the 4th of July, 2008 at around 0400 the police suddenly stormed the Kedong Refugee camp and forcibly removed the remaining internally displaced people. Six months earlier the same people had been chased out of their former residences in Naivasha often by neighbours and acquaintances when violence exploded in and around the town. This time it was the police doing the evicting.

The tents were torn down, often with the inhabitants still inside. Meagre possessions which had been saved in the first wave of violence were now tossed about as the police pushed the people to leave the Kedong IDP camp. In one tent a one year old boy was trampled, his screams mixed with the cries of fear and anger coming from other parts of the encampment.

The refugee camp at Kedong in Naivasha was set up primarily by some local flower farms for their employees. However, though many of the residents were local farm employees, a fair number were also unemployed, some having lost their businesses when violence rocked the town of Naivasha early this year.

The government had insisted the camp should be closed by the 29th of June. To facilitate the transition the government promised each of the displaced Ksh 10,000 (about $160 US). For the most part the payment of this money ran smoothly. But by the end of last week, despite the passing of the deadline and the departure of the Red Cross, there were still some who were waiting to be paid.

On Thursday evening the government officials paid half of the remaining people, promising to return the following day to pay the rest. But early the following morning, while it was still dark, the police arrived and evicted those still left in the camp.

Children are amongst the evicted now

living outside Kedong camp

When the police stormed the camp, some of the residents were at work. They arrived the following morning to find their tents gone and most of their possessions looted.

Two sick people still in the camp were taken, along with their meagre possessions, and were left outside of the police station in Naivasha, their fate to be determined at some later date.

The police action in the Kedong camp raised the anxiety level of those in the other IDP camp in Naivasha. The government has assured refugees that their resettlement is voluntary. But those in the Naivasha Stadium now fear that they too may have the police come to evict them against their will, and perhaps even violently.

The remainder of the people from the Kedong camp have now set up forms of shelter outside the abandoned settlement. Inside the neighbouring wire enclosure the watch towers, toilets and water tanks are all that are left of the former IDP camp. But the refugees have been prohibited from entering the area where sheep now graze on what was their temporary home just a few days ago. Now they must live off of the goodwill of well wishers while they wait for the government to recognise their plight.

Internally Displaced Forgotten by All

Shocking too is how this incident has been ignored by the media. The government officials chose to send in the police under cover of darkness, with no Red Cross official or no journalist present to witness the event. Since then the refugees who have lost so much continue to wait for someone to sit up and take notice of their plight.