Beauttah Omanga And Allan Kisia
18 February 2008
Nairobi — About 30 children who lost contact with their parents and ended up at IDP camps in Kisumu have been handed over to children's homes.
And as scores of IDPs who were camping in the town were escorted to their ancestral homes, more victims arrived Sunday morning, mainly from Naivasha.
The new arrivals said they opted to leave after they received death threats if they continued staying and working at the flower firms.
Officials of the Red Cross Society (RCS), Kisumu branch, said most of the children had arrived at the lakeside camps without their parents.
"We felt the young ones would be well catered for at children's homes as we try to locate the whereabouts and the fate of the parents," said Mr Zachary Olem, an operations manager with RCS.
He said they had sought the services of counsellors and medical personnel to help the victims in overcoming trauma. Olem was speaking at Kisumu St Stephen Cathedral Church where he received donation from the Lake Basin Development Authority's Managing Director, Mr Joseph Khaemba.
Meanwhile, a transit camp has been opened in Kakamega to assist displaced people return to their rural homes in Western Province.
The RCS said the camp, which is located at the showground, would offer temporary shelter for the victims.
Mrs Pamela Indiaka, the Red Cross regional coordinator for Western and Nyanza, said the camp would accommodate the families as they look for ways of getting to their homes.
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