Mwangi Ndirangu
6 October 2008
Nairobi — More than 3,000 squatters from Laikipia East District want the Government to resettle them after being ordered out of private pieces of land they have occupied for nearly three decades.
The squatters from Kimagandura say they cannot buy part of the land put up for sale by the owners.
Those affected are pastoralists who settled in 1982, but have been ordered to vacate after the owners sold sections of the 15,000-acre land to private developers.
Squatter spokesman Saituk Kaparo told district officer Charity Macharia at a meeting on Sunday that the Government should buy the land for sub-division among the residents.
They had lived in the area for 26 years, he said.
An alternative
"We shouldn't be evicted from where our children regard as home without an alternative settlement," he said.
The meeting at Il Digiri shopping centre had been called to order the squatters to leave peacefully. In the past, the defiant pastoralists have been involved in confrontation with the land owners.
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