This archive report was first published on 1 November 2019.
Chairman of the Mombasa-based Frere Town Nyasa Community, Price Uledi, and elder Jimmy Kitao display a map of their original settlement at Frere Town in Mombasa County on October 39, 2019.
The Nyasa people, who live in Mombasa and Kilifi counties, want the national government to grant them full citizenship. According to Uledi, despite living in Kenya for over a century, they were not fully recognised as Kenyans.
"We have had issues with acquisition of the mandatory national identity cards and land ownership documents, as they are not readily available to us," Mr Uledi said yesterday.
The Nyasa, who trace their ancestry to Malawi, are descendants of slaves captured by Arab slavers and freed by British naval forces in the 1890s. Many were settled in Kenyan coastal cities and converted to Christianity by missionaries.
Uledi said information indicated that the original freed slaves were allocated 663 acres around the present Frere Town area in Kisauni Constituency. However, their land has been reduced drastically over the years, with only 50 acres remaining today.
"When the CMS left for the deep hinterland to conduct missionary work, our land came under grabbers' hands and reduced drastically," Uledi said.
Mr Kitao added that since the 1930s, they had not known peace, as their land continued to shrink. He also stated that their children were still subjected to discrimination, hence their plea to the government to consider them as another ethnic tribe.
"Our contribution to the national economy is there for all to see. We have been law-abiding citizens. We are not very different from the Makonde and Indians who got the nod for recognition as Kenyan tribes," Uledi said.
Haki Africa, a Mombasa-based civil society group, issued a statement saying there was need for structured dialogue to ensure the grievances of freed slaves were heard and addressed.
