This archive report was first published on 19 June 2020.
On June 19, 2020, hundreds of residents in Kibarani, Bahati, and Kwa Punda informal settlements in Mombasa took to the streets to protest what they termed as biased relief food distribution in the coastal city.
The protests came ahead of the rollout of the second phase of the county-wide food distribution program, which was launched by the Governor Hassan Joho-led administration in April 2020.
The program, known as the Mombasa County Emergency Household Relief and Nutrition Programmer, aimed to target over 250,000 vulnerable households. However, the residents of Kibarani, Bahati, and Kwa Punda claimed that they had been excluded from the first phase of the program despite being registered.
‘For the last three months, we have not been given any food. Other informal areas of Jomvu were given food, but we were left out,’ a protester said.
Another protester alleged that two people had died of hunger in Kibarani, a claim that the county government had yet to respond to.
The residents also complained that they had been left out of the Kazi Mtaani Program, a national government initiative targeting unemployed youths.
