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Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya.
Volunteers distribute food aid to children from the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty
Volunteers distribute food aid to children from the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

250,000 Kenyans driven out of homes

This article is more than 16 years old
Warring politicians face deadlock in the wake of violence that has left many desperate for food

High inside the control tower overlooking the main arena at the International Trade Fair grounds in Nairobi is a dark room, three metres across and four metres long. Anne Gathoni, a single mother, sits on a foam mattress, her only remaining possession, cradling 10-month-old Joanne. On the floor is a packet of ugali maize flour and some sugar she had just lined up to collect on the field below.

In Nairobi, where many of the people are desperately poor, few have ever relied on handouts. Those below the poverty line did what they had to scrape together a few shillings to buy sukuma wiki, a cheap spinach-like vegetable, and ugali, to fill the family's stomachs once a day. But that has changed.

Up to 250,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic violence after the disputed election last week, won by President Mwai Kibaki. As with Gathoni, a vegetable hawker who lived, until last week, with Joanne and her seven-year-old, Eric, in the sprawling Kibera slum a mile away, they now have nowhere to go and no way of making a living.

'Men threw stones which cut Eric's mouth,' Gathoni, 28, said, explaining why she fled her home. 'They said that Kibaki stole the election and that they did not want to see any Kikuyus [Kibaki's ethnic group] in Kibera. They chased us away and took everything in the house."

The biggest problem is in the west of the country, where gangs of youths claiming to support Raila Odinga, the opposition presidential candidate, who lost by a whisker, have targeted Kikuyus and Kisiis, who usually voted for Kibaki. In the north Rift Valley area alone, 100,000 people need immediate help.

There, the attacks have been particularly brutal, with at least 17 people killed, mostly children, when a church near the town of Eldoret, in which they were sheltering, was set on fire. The violence is not merely political, but tied to long-standing tension over land ownership. Kikuyus are not originally from the area but have bought up property and used it successfully over the past few decades, to the resentment of other ethnic groups. Thousands of terrified people chased from their homes are sheltering in churches and police stations in Eldoret, while dozens of buses carrying mainly Kikuyus have left the area for Nairobi and Kibaki's own Central Province with an army escort.

With vigilante groups blocking the main roads, food had not been getting in to the outlying areas of western Kenya, where many displaced are holed up. But after two days of relative calm, the roadblocks are being dismantled and relief supplies are slowly getting in. Aid workers say there is no threat of starvation, but, with no adequate water, shelter or sanitation, the situation remains dire.

Eva Mwai, chief executive of St John Ambulance Kenya, helping co-ordinate the food distribution at the fair grounds in Nairobi, said: 'It is unbelievable this is happening in Kenya. What hurts me is that the politicians who everyone is fighting about have food, security and money. It's the common people who are suffering. Most of the people have lost the little they had.'

Judith Syombua, 32, is sharing the Control Tower room with Gathoni, two other single mothers and nine children. Her house and vegetable stall were burnt down by a mob. 'I cannot go back to Kibera to be with the people who did this. Where are we going to live? How are we going to get money to start a business?'

Roger Yates, Action Aid's Kenyan director, said that people targeted over ethnicity would never feel comfortable returning to their old areas. 'The psychosocial and trauma element will be the thing that stops people getting their lives back to normal. People from the wrong group in the wrong place have had their confidence deeply shattered.'

The government continues to insist the election result was fair. But others disagree. France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Friday he thought the elections were 'rigged'. Britain, the biggest bilateral donor to Kenya, agrees, even if its language is not as explicit. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: 'Serious concerns about the conduct of the count stand in the way of the formation of a stable government that commands the confidence of the Kenyan people.' He called for international mediation and said President John Kufuor of Ghana, head of the African Union, should take a key role. But Kenya's government said Kufuor was not needed, forcing him to abandon a trip to Nairobi.

After meeting Jendayi Frazer, the top US diplomat for Africa, yesterday, Kibaki's press office said he was prepared to form a government of national unity. But Odinga rejected the idea. 'We want a negotiated settlement,' he said. 'Our starting point is that Kibaki is there illegally. He should not come to the negotiating table as the President.'

Odinga's advisers say that even the offer of the prime ministerial post would take him back to where he was in 2002. Then, he helped Kibaki win power and was promised the premier's position and told Kibaki would stand for a single term. Both promises were broken.

One option for Odinga would be to take up his seat as opposition leader. His Orange Democratic Movement has double the number of seats of Kibaki's PNU and its allies and could try to bring the government to a standstill. If he can convince smaller parties, he could stage a vote of no-confidence in Kibaki

But for Jane Titus, 37, a Kamba, the ethnic group of the third main presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka, but nonetheless chased out of Kibera with her baby in her arms last week, a rerun of the election is the only solution.

'The opposition rigged by pressuring us to vote for them and the government rigged in the counting,' she said, before joining the queue behind the St John Ambulance to try to get some milk for her baby. Having barely eaten last week, her breast milk has dried up and she has been feeding her infant water mixed with a glucose solution. 'We must vote again. But maybe this time we need international candidates, because our leaders are all the same. Ah, Kenyans ...'

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