“Even after losing all our belongings, some marauding gangs are still following us inside the police station, threatening us with dire consequences if we don’t leave.” That’s how one refugee described conditions in Kenya, in an article in yesterday’s Daily Nation. More than 800 people have been killed in the last month in post-election violence, and more than 300,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
There are at least 44 makeshift camps throughout Kenya housing those who have been evicted from their homes because of their ethnicity. It is estimated that two thirds of them are women and children. The stories of cruelty and barbarity are horrifying. An email received a couple of days ago from friends in Kenya says:
“A neighbouring pastor of International Christian Fellowship was shot on the chest twice as he prayed and prepared for Sunday service the next day by unknown assailants and is in intensive care unit in Nairobi Hospital… Police and military officers and friends of ours advised us to vacate Nairobi for our own safety. They said even the armed forces have tribal differences waiting to ‘burst’ any time… In the primary slums where we work we get regular reports of people of different tribes being given 24 hours eviction notices or face death… Children have began to hate each other in schools/ universities on tribal grounds…”