Uprooted Kenyans long to return home

More than 200,000 people remain in camps three months after ethnic clashes killed 1,200.

from the April 10, 2008 edition

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The conflict between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin dates back to the mid-20th century, when many Kikuyus moved to the Rift Valley from their ancestral Central Province to work on land owned by white British settlers. After Kenyan independence in 1963, some Kikuyus were able to buy the land from the government as part of a resettlement scheme, according to Catherine Gatundu, deputy coordinator of the Kenya Land Alliance.

"The people who consider the Rift their ancestral land continue to feel aggrieved," says Ms. Gatundu. "This violence will keep happening in election years until the government deals with land claims."

Mbugua and many other farmers in the Nakuru IDP camp are hoping the government will provide them with a solution – either security and startup funds at home so that they can return, or a resettlement package to start over somewhere else.

According to a government strategy paper released March 8, the resettlement and reintegration of IDPs is under way. But IDPs say the calls to go home ring hollow.

Lucy Njoki, a 106-year-old Kikuyu woman in the Nakuru camp, said she ran from her home in Kericho when the Kalenjin attackers arrived. Though she was chased from her home in previous election years and camped out for up to six months, she says this time is different.

"I would rather die in this camp than go back to that place," Ms. Njoki says. "I feel like they are still there waiting for me."

Some experts like Gatundu say that rather than returning home, many IDPs will eventually integrate into slums in cities like Nakuru, as some Kikuyus have done in past election years.

Meanwhile, their land may lie unused because the Kalenjins who chased them away cannot claim the land without the proper legal documents.

"So much of the land will lie fallow, and that will have a great impact on food security," says Gatundu.

Mbugua says the monotony and hopelessness of the camp weighs on him.

"Here in this camp, we are living desperately and have no way ahead," he says, "but we are still hoping that our God will remember us."

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