7th March, 2008
On the evening of Friday, 28 February, barely two hours after the historic agreement between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, a number of trucks offloaded 258 internally displaced people from Kibera in the Chief’s Camp at Waithaka in Nairobi, barely 100 metres from AMREF’s Dagoretti Children in Need project.
These IDPs had resisted the 25 February closure of the Jamhuri Park camp, refused to follow the government’s request to report back to the Chief in Kibera and return to their homes. 
“We have had been hiding out in the bushes near Jamhuri. When the private guards from the showground found us, they threw their meagre belongings over the fence, where they were promptly looted and they organised our eviction”, says Naomi Njeri, one of the new arrivals.
Basically, this group of families, mainly from one ethnic group, claim they cannot return to Kibera as they are too frightened and do no trust their neighbours. Others claim that only a part of them are actually escaping from fear while many are taking advantage of the situation, of the confusion, to obtain some sorts of benefits. The fact remains that they are now “camping” on the Waithaka hill.
This new camp is now set up on the bare ground of the local administrator’s office compound. It has no running water, two old latrines and no security. The local Chief expects it to be closed within two or three weeks, but as most of these people have been on the run since December 29th, the night the election results were announced, it is anybody’s guess when they might leave and – most importantly – where they might go.
Already on the morning of Friday 29th, AMREF installed water tanks and is currently still providing the required supplies. Yesterday, the AMREF staff organised for some barbed wire fencing to be installed around the camp, so as to protect these new residents. Other AMREF partners are providing food and portable latrines. Volunteers from a group of local churches were at the camp to provide the much needed help.
Waithaka’s 258 new residents are living under plastic sheeting hung from ropes tied to trees. They often sleep on blankets on the bare ground and if, as expected, in the next days or weeks the long rains arrive, the place will turn into a quagmire. AMREF is advocating for this situation to be resolved as soon as possible.
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Click on the link to see other ways in which AMREF has responded to the crisis in Kenya.