- Ngeno has been advocating for the resettlement and compensation of the evictees.
- He said they are happy the Kenya Kwanza administration has listened to the pleas of the evictees.
Image: KIPLANGAT KIRUI
Mau evictees who were flushed out of the Maasai Mau forest have every reason to smile after the government started the process of compensating them bringing an end to a 35 year-debacle.
In what has been termed as an early Christmas gift, the evictees who have been living at IDP camps in Segemian and Olmekenyu camps for over four years now, were on Thursday in a celebratory mood after the money started hitting their accounts.
Emurua Dikirr MP Johana Ngeno visited them to deliver the good news.
Ngeno has been advocating for the resettlement and compensation of the evictees.
The MP was arrested twice in 2020 after he led some leaders from the region in opposing the evictions.
Speaking during the Mashujaa Day celebrations at Emurua Dikirr Primary School in Narok, Ngeno lauded the government’s move to compensate the evictees especially those who were living in the makeshift camps.
Each of the evictees will get Sh300,000 in the first phase of the resettlement.
“It is sad that these people have been living in deplorable conditions since they were evicted from their farms inhumanely by the previous regime,” Ngeno said.
He said they are happy that the Kenya Kwanza administration has listened to the pleas of the evictees.
“People have been dying in the IDPs camps and there was no place they could bury because they have no homes, but now they have money to buy the lands,” he said.
The MP said there are people who were left out of the compensation especially those who have genuine land documents and the government is addressing their issue.
Recently, President William Ruto said the evictees removed from the forest will get alternative land.
While attending the burial of Mzee Titame ole Sankei at Olopirik in Narok, Ruto said they will evict all illegal encroachers currently occupying the forest, but they must use humane way unlike the past evictions.
In 2018/2019, the government evicted over 35,000 people from the forest land at Sierra Leone and Nkoben areas in Narok South.
In the efforts of protecting the forest land, the government through Kenya Water towers put up a 30-kilometres electric fence at Nkoben and Sierra Leone part of the forest.
Maasai Mau, one of the 22 forest blocks forming the Mau Forest Complex, had been extensively impacted by illegal settlements, after ballooning of five adjacent group ranches during land sub-division.
In 2018, the government launched operations to evict people from the forest to reclaim it as it was slowly diminishing.
During the first phase of the eviction in July 2018, about 7,700 people were evicted from the forestland which saw over 12,000 acres of the forest reclaimed.
Security forces demolished homes and social amenities, including schools, churches and health clinics, rendering many people homeless during evictions.
In the second phase conducted in 2019, 3,300 families living in the Maasai Mau moved out voluntarily after the government gave a 60-day eviction notice recovering 35,000 acres of forest land.
The first phase was centered in Reiya group ranch while the second phase had Nkoben, Ilmotiok and Ololunga on the radar.
Mau forest complex, the largest water catchment area in Kenya consists of 22 blocks covering more than 400,000 hectares and extends through several counties including Narok.