This archive report was first published on 1 November 2019.
On October 31st, 2019, a group of Rift Valley leaders, including Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago and Kericho Governor Paul Chepkwony, held a press conference at the Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi to express their concerns over the evictions in the Mau forest.
According to the leaders, President Uhuru Kenyatta had promised the squatters that they would not be evicted from the water tower, but the President has remained silent on the issue.
“We are shocked by the ongoing cavalier, clandestine, guerrilla-like operation against innocent unarmed citizens being carried out by a legitimate, democratic government in Narok south. This is completely unacceptable, heinous and criminal,” the leaders said in a joint statement.
The leaders also claimed that residents have been reduced to homeless, helpless squatters and refugees in their legitimate homes, and that they are being subjected to deliberate abuse, torture, dispossession, humiliation, and other atrocious crimes by security officers.
They called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Kenya Red Cross Society, and any other humanitarian organisations to help them collect resources and provide shelter for the evictees.
“A humanitarian crisis of monumental proportions is escalating in Narok South. Innocent citizens are being targeted and subjected to deliberate abuse, torture, dispossession, humiliation, and other atrocious crimes by security officers of the government of Kenya,” the statement read.
