KENYA: Uneasy calm return to slum as police patrol, hundreds of slum dwellers displaced find security outside military base

Hundreds of residents who fled Nairobi's Mathare slums after fighting broke out between two outlawed groups were camped outside a nearby airforce base on Wednesday (November 8). As police kept watch, women with young children sat with the belonging they were able to salvage, mattresses and other household goods, outside the Moi Airbase north of Nairobi The violence in Nairobi's sprawling Mathare slum on Monday night (November 6) was between the rival Mungiki and Taliban groups over protection money levied by one of them on brewers of an illegal drink. The displaced residents now say that they will ask the government to move them from the area. "Instead of people chasing each other, the government should move them (the slum residents) elsewhere and supply tents while they investigate these issues, because there is nothing else that we can do now," said this unnamed male slum resident camped outside the base. Others recounted the violence from Monday night saying that they weren't able to salvage their belongings. "After they (the gangs) set fire to the houses, they said they would cut anyone who tried to put out the fires. We couldn't save anything from our houses. All one could do is try and save their children and forget the houses," said another displaced slum dweller. Mungiki is a banned sect whose name means "multitude" in the Kikuyu language of Kenya's biggest ethnic group. In February, police arrested the head of the notorious sect over killings and running extortion rackets among transport operators. Slum dwellers say the sect instils fear and respect by promoting archaic spiritual rituals like swearing tribal oaths.

ITN Source | November 9, 2006

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