Demolitions,
About 30 households in Nyeri’s Witemere Ministry of Works slums have been rendered homeless after a private developer brought down their homes during a Friday morning demolition exercise.
The families, some of who have resided on the disputed piece of land for more than 10 years, say they were woken up at 6am by a commotion that was caused by police land rovers and a group of young men who ordered them out before descending on their houses with power saws.
“We were not given time to salvage anything, they were just knocking on your door and asking you to leave before powering the saws and maliciously splicing your house into two,” said Patrick Kariuki, one of the victims who had put up a wooden house on the disputed land.
Margaret Wangari is lost in thoughts as she sits by the roadside with some of the property she was able to salvage after a private developer demolished her house at the Witemere slums.
The disputed parcel of land measures 0.1766 hectares. According to documents seen by KNA, the land was leased out for 99 years on July 10, 2019 to Andrew Kihuri and five others. But the victims claim that searches at the Land office show that the disputed parcel of land belongs to the government and has not been leased out and as such, only the government has a right to evict them.
The evictees have also blamed police for taking sides in the land dispute. They say the law enforcement officers have on several occasions arrested them on unsubstantiated charges at the request of the said developer.
“We are aware that this is government land and we had no problem vacating it. However, the government is not the one asking us to leave and that is where the problem lies. The said owner of this land has never presented himself nor showed us the boundaries of his land and we therefore feel violated because he doesn’t have a right to evict us,” said Francis Wambugu.
Margaret Wangari is lost in thoughts as she sits by the roadside with some of the property she was able to salvage after a private developer demolished her house at the Witemere slums.
They are now calling on the county government and the area leaders to intervene in the matter. They have also pleaded with the local administration for alternative shelter as they try to pick up the pieces.
“We lost our property and food during the demolition, and we are appealing to the government to show us some alternative shelter as we try to figure out our way around this crisis,” said Margaret Wangari.