It’s deathly silence, fear as villages heal from killings

Deserted villages, hushed tones, cautious moves and suspicious glances spell the mood at several villages thrown in disarray following deadly clashes in Nessuit ward, Njoro Sub-county.

At Tiritagoi, the silence is loud, dispelling the once bubbly village. Cows too do not moo – they move in a single file, hooves thrusting dust as they strut through the dusty paths.

In schools, children who have reported back chat away the break in groups, still in hushed tones, some in torn uniform while others in home clothes.

Vast maize plantations cannot make things any easier, they heighten the suspicions with every little brush, as cautious glances can tell.

“There is uneasy calm between the two communities. Fear still looms, but we are trying to bring peace between ourselves,” says Isaac Koros.

Here, no one wants to mention the rival tribe by name, only referring to each other as “our neighbours” or “those other people”. In one of the houses, residents declined to talk within the compound for fear of an attack.

“What if the attackers realise we are all spending a night here? We might be raided at night and the house set ablaze,” says Koros.

Several other houses are deserted during the day, but residents sneak in at night, not to sleep but to keep guard.

“We do not sleep soundly, we keep an ear lest we get smoked out of the house,” says Mr Koros.

As we establish, the house hosts a number of victims whose property went up in flames during the deadly attacks in which six people were killed and others left with arrow head injuries. The rebuilding process is still slow, with most having moved their families out of their farms to be hosted by distant relatives.

Curfew

“My house was set on fire after the curfew had been imposed. Security officers had already been deployed and calm had returned. Luckily, my children were still staying with the relatives and I was alone when the attackers set the house on fire. I managed to escape to a nearby maize plantation,” says Simon Mutai.

The father of six is reluctant to rebuild, he has made plans for his children to start schooling in Teret, where they are seeking refuge.

“It is a three-hour walk to where my children are and I do not want them to come home and get depressed. We have lost everything. I will rebuild my house, but not now,” Mutai says.

Even as villagers grapple with re-building houses and nurturing peace, a humanitarian crisis is looming as most of those who lost their houses have nothing other than the chunks of land said to be the source of conflicts.

In 2001, the government excised more than 67,000 hectares of forest reserve land, mainly in the Mau Complex.

The largest excisions affected Eastern Mau and South West Mau forest reserves. About 35,301 hectares of forestland was excised in Eastern Mau, representing 54.3 per cent of the forest, to create settlement schemes in parts of Kuresoi North, South, Molo and Njoro.

Bernard Rotich, like many others whose property went up in flames, is also staring at a crisis. “Everything is gone. All the maize and beans I had set aside until the next harvest, clothes and other property are all in ashes. Even as much as we are seeking refuge, we do not have the basics, including food and clothing and that is why most children are yet to go back to school,” says Rotich.

Ogiek Secondary School deputy headteacher Mercy Lang’at attributed the low number of students to the rebuilding process. “Only 14 out of 120 students have so far reported. Some are reporting with no uniform and others are still seeking refuge from neighbours. The students require a lot of support, especially on basic needs,” says Ms Lang’at.

And while issues of looming evictions and land issues have been blamed as key in the flare-ups, some residents maintain that the cutline is clear and the clashes erupted as a result of the caveat, disagreements on sale of land and the influx of those buying land in the area.

Buffer zone

“The caveat is very clear, trees have been planted in the buffer zones separating forest and settlement areas. We have the agreements and our houses were burnt,” says Mr Sammy Koech.

At Logoman Forest, which is part of the Eastern Mau Complex, the buffer zone created in 2013  is clear, with trees planted under the shamba system, also known as Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme (PELIS).

“The recent cut line is clear and currently, no one has encroached in Tiritagoi. The only place we have challenges is in Koilong’et forest in parts of Teret where 200 houses are within the forest. There are a few cases too in Ndashata in Nessuit but we have since moved them out,” says Shadrack Tokii, a forest officer at Logoman.

He said the buffer zone cuts through Teret to Musegekwa, where the clashes were intense.

Tokii says issues on encroachment have been a major challenge in Mau. However, he says politics has continued to play a key role, where large herds of cattle are allowed in to the forest, further destroying plantations under PELIS.

“PELIS has been doing well, especially in degraded areas where people had encroached,” he says.