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Kenya: Nowhere to Go
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
25 February 2008
Posted to the web 25 February 2008
Kisumu
More than 10,000 displaced people, who have moved to their "ancestral lands" in western Kenya to escape ethnic violence, face an uncertain future in what is, for many, a foreign country.
Some of these so-called returnees, mostly women and children, have never been to western Kenya before but they are being pressured to move out of temporary transit camps after just two or three days.
"There was a warm welcome on the first day. Over the following days they [staff at the camp] turned to enemies. They started telling me that I should go back home," said 22-year-old Grace Anyango, who had been taken to Kisumu's main transit camp, a building site belonging to St Stephen's Cathedral, on 10 February.
"I come from Migori but there is nobody at home. Everybody has died there. They [camp staff] didn't want to listen. I was told: 'Just go or else we will take you in our vehicle and leave you at Migori and you can find your way.' I was put outside together with my luggage," she said.
Anyango was born in Tanzania to Luo parents from Kenya. They moved to Naivasha in Rift Valley Province when she was 16. After her parents died, she found work as a cleaner.
As Kenya's post-election violence took an ethnic twist, the Mungiki, a Kikuyu militia, started attacking other ethnic communities in Naivasha. Anyango took her two-year-old daughter, Ida, to Naivasha prison for safety.
Security there was little better and Anyango was relieved when she was offered a seat on a bus, hired by the local Anglican church, taking displaced people to Kisumu, the capital of Luo-dominated Nyanza Province.
The St Stephen's Cathedral transit camp was set up by locals in Kisumu who wanted to help internally displaced people (IDPs) arriving in the city. Some local residents spent millions of shillings of their own money transporting "returnees" to safety from IDP camps in Nairobi, Naivasha and Nakuru.
"All in all we require on average 200,000 shillings (US$2,850) cash per day. Most of it, to be honest, I pay myself," said Yogesh Dawda, a Kisumu businessman who spent several hours each day at the camp.
The Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) came in later to support the volunteers at St Stephen's Cathedral and set up a transit camp in Moi Stadium.
According to KRCS figures, 8,155 IDPs had passed through St Stephen's camp and 1,365 through Moi Stadium by 18 February. Thousands more were bussed directly to smaller towns in the region.
Government authorisation is required to set up a permanent IDP camp in Kenya. This has not been sought as the Kisumu transit camps are viewed as temporary.
"They are not allowed to stay here more than three days. Some are forced to board vehicles to where they think they come from. But in reality they don't know anybody where they are going. They reach these places and they are stranded," said Mary Odhiambo, a volunteer in the camp.
"People have gone and they come back. They say they have looked for their ancestral homes. They have not been able to trace them. The only option is to come back. When they come back they are also told to look for somewhere else."
Moved on
Stella Atieno, 20, and her three-year-old son Eric, lived in Nairobi with Atieno's parents. When the Mungiki started attacking Luos on their estate, Atieno and her parents found space on a bus taking displaced people to western Kenya.
"The bus was intercepted by a gang. They ordered everyone out and told them to put their identity cards in their mouths. They started cutting the men and raping the women and they burned the bus," Atieno said.
In the melée, Atieno managed to escape with her child and ran into the bush. She assumed that her parents died. She begged a lorry driver to give her a ride to Kisumu and found St Stephen's camp.
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Atieno had heard her parents talking about Rangwe, the area they originally came from. She was taken there but could not trace any family members, so she was brought back to the camp.
Volunteers found the name of another relative in Atieno's notebook but Atieno did not want to go: "This is a person who has mistreated me before. They are telling me to go. If I go, I will still end up coming back here."
Several volunteers told IRIN they opposed the camp's policy of moving people on to their ancestral homes.
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