Displaced in Kenya

Written by Dani Grigsby, MIRA Intern

Immigration is traditionally considered an occurrence that requires crossing an international border. The latter portion of the 20^th century saw the emergence of a new area of academic study in relation to human movement, that being the movements of individuals, unwillingly, within a nation’s borders, qualifying them as the newly termed internationally displaced persons (IDPs).

The study of IDPs, their subsequent legal definition, rights, and social resources is complex and ever changing as the world’s complex political environment continues to create opportunities for the definition of an IDP to be tested, tried and redefined.

One such instance of IDP creation occurred in Kenya, the east-African nation, in the post-2007 presidential election violence.

I had the opportunity to participate in Tuft’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s sponsored field-based thesis research in relation to gender identity as a driving factor in the occurrence of violence in the east-African country of Kenya post-2007 presidential election. This fighting proffered another instance where IDPs were created and their treatment, rights and resources needed definition.

I conducted interviews with a survivor of the violence, an IDP and the following are my personal reflections:

By January 27, 2008 the violence had quieted throughout Kenya. The Burnt Forest region, one of the areas hardest hit, had been mostly stabilized. The warring parties were still living separately, as IDPs, devoid of a functional economy. The Kenyan police had moved into the area to assist in its stabilization and to provide a measure of services to these internally displaced.

On this particular day, the police from Eldoret were moving slowly down the road between Eldoret town and Burnt Forest removing the remaining roadblocks.

The IDPs and villagers of Burnt Forest were unaware of these actions and, upon seeing the roadblocks removed, began to scatter chaotically, fearing a reoccurrence of violence.

The police stationed in Burnt Forest, mandated to prevent the congregation of youth—or men, in general—in groups, began chasing after the villagers as they scattered, fearing they, the villagers, were about to incite violence.

These misunderstandings, from both sides, further contributed to the day’s chaos.

The woman, whose story I was collecting, was the mother of 11 children. Her eldest son and husband were in the town center as this madness ensued. Her son, a restaurant worker, retreated into his place of work and locked the door, hoping to protect it from looting. Seeing this action, the police broke down the door trying to disperse the young men, fearing their congregation. This young man and his co-workers fled out the back and began to run.

The police followed, armed, and began to fire at the young men. Moments into the chase a bullet tore through the back of this woman’s son’s skull. He dropped, deceased at 24.

Horrifically, his father, this woman’s husband, was a direct witness to his son’s death. In terror, he rushed to his son’s limp body. As he reached the boy and attempted to raise his son off the ground, he too was gunned down, dying in a heap on top of his son’s body.

Through her tears my interviewee begged me for explanation.

“Why did they have to kill them? Worse, why did they have to kill BOTH of them?”

She lost her family’s two breadwinners that day.

Her home had previously been burned and she was summarily left without a home, an IDP, without skills enough to provide for herself, left without sons of age to assist, without enough money to educate her daughters beyond the standard age of eight.

And this is how I found her, her situation unchanged over two years later. While no longer qualifying as an IDP, she was granted access to housing through the charitable generosity of a neighbor, though without access to permanent housing and permanent sustainable livelihood she lives a day-to-day survivalist existence, with no capital accrued, and no option for self-promotion.

Her hands, work chapped, held tightly a photo album containing snap-shots of her son and husband. These few photos comprised the most modern possessions included in her wood-slated home.

Tears sting at my eyes. Asante sana. Profound.