This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
On Tuesday, a tense scene unfolded in Eldoret as at least 250 families were forcibly evicted from their homes in Macharia estate, near the 64 stadium. The eviction exercise, carried out by a contingent of enforcement officers including the police, was the culmination of a six-year tussle over county government housing units.
According to residents, the county had first ordered them to vacate the premises in 2013, but locals rushed to court to oppose the orders. John Nderitu, a resident who has lived in the municipal houses for over 40 years, explained that county officers had asked occupants to pay Sh800 per month, up from the Sh400 they were paying, but the occupants resisted the move and challenged it in court.
Angry residents claimed they had secured a court order stopping the eviction, pending a hearing of a case in which occupants of the county houses are challenging the eviction at the Eldoret Environment and Lands court on September 17. However, enforcement officers proceeded with the eviction exercise, which started at 6 am.
Residents, including elderly widows, were left with nowhere to go. An elderly widow, Christine Too, said she would spend the night under a tree in the estate after the county declined to seek an alternative residence for the affected. Ms Too pleaded with county askaris to allow her to continue living in the house, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.
At some point, the police were forced to use teargas to force out tenants who declined to move out of the old houses. Uasin Gishu county secretary Edwin Bett defended the exercise, saying the county had secured orders to remove all occupants in the county premises.
