Hundred tusinder vaf kenyanere blev fordrevet fra deres hjem under efter-valg-uroilighederne i 2007. De kræver nu retfærdig behandling og yderligere erstatning.
LAIKIPIA, 24 May 2012 (IRIN) – Most of those displaced by post-election violence mainly in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province five years ago have been resettled, but those whose relatives were killed or who lost their property are seeking justice and further compensation.
With few perpetrators of the violence having been bought to book, “the compensation they need is not only in monetary terms, but also in accessing justice for lost lives,” said Collins Omondi, an official with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
“Even though most of the IDPs [internally displaced persons] may have gotten some financial support from the government, the money was so little, considered by not only [the] average losses, but [also] the time wasted in displacement.”
Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced at the height of the 2007- early 2008 post-polls violence into squalid camps.
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The government provided 10,000 shillings (US$120) in family assistance to 157,908 of the displaced households, with a further 37,843 households receiving 25,000 shillings ($300) to help them rebuild houses burnt down in the violence, Special Programmes Minister Esther Murugi told IRIN.
“But we discovered most of them would not spend the money on reconstructing their houses so we stopped giving the 25,000 shillings,” added Murugi.
Instead, the ministry started constructing houses for those who were ready to return to the areas they had been displaced from, building 17,916 homes. A further 3,000 houses have also been built for IDP families that have been resettled elsewhere, with 1,300 more units under construction.
“If I buy you land and build for you, what else would you want from me? That itself is more than justice enough,” said Murugi.
For IDPs who previously ran businesses, the land alone is inadequate.
“I am happy that I will get a piece of land, not necessarily for my own, but [as] an inheritance for my grandson. But I wish the government gave me money to restart my business which was burnt down during [the violence],” 80-year-old Elishiba Muthoni, told IRIN, in the Wiyumiririe area of the central Laikipia County.
Muthoni, whose daughter was killed in the turmoil, was a second-hand clothes seller in the Rift Valley town of Kericho. She received 10,000 shillings ($120) from the government yet her business stock was worth at least 150,000 shillings ($1,807).
“The single-track approach of buying agricultural land and resettling IDPs, and sometimes assisting them to build houses is not feasible,” noted a September 2011 report by the UN Development Programme and the UN Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“The diversity in terms of socioeconomic occupation within the IDP population needs to be acknowledged. Some of these IDPs ran businesses, and have no farming skills whatsoever,” said the report.
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