African Woman and Child Feature Service

Susan Robi hurries through Senta Market heading towards Nyamtiro Market on the Kenya -Tanzania border. She has a huge load on her head, a baby on her back and is tugging along her two other children aged about six and nine respectively.

“We have to cross quickly into Tanzania or else they will kill us,” she tells this writer as she hurries away, not wanting to spend a minute longer. The children are barely managing to keep her pace but they have no choice and run along with the mother.

A short distance away, scores of other women and their children are gathering their belongings, also in a hurry to leave and are in no mood to talk to any stranger. Everybody appears to be in a hurry to leave.

There is an unmistakable sense of fear and insecurity in Kuria East district of Nyanza Province of Kenya, which has been rocked by renewed bloody inter-clan fighting since April this year.

The district borders Tanzania to the south, Transmara District to the north and Kuria West on one side. It is one of the more than 100 districts that President Kibaki has created since the last quarter of 2007.

A bustling market three months ago, attracting traders from as far as Migori and Tanzania, Senta is now ghostly, with most business premises closed and the few residents still daring to stay, peeping out of their houses with half closed doors or through windows.

The effect of the violence on business and other communal activities is reflected in most of the market centres and villages along the boundary of Kegonga and Ntimaru Divisions that make up Kuria East district.

Activities in most parts of the two divisions including learning in schools, trade and farming have virtually come to a stand - still following renewed inter-clan violence between the Nyabasi and Bairege who occupy Kegonga and Ntimaru respectively.

The violence, which has so far claimed over 30 people, over one 1000, has intensified over the last two month following what initially were said to have been incidents of cattle rustling between the two clans. Over 200 houses have been burnt completely and property worth millions of shillings destroyed.

The exact death toll is not known. Some of the dead have been shot dead by security personnel quelling the violence, others shot with arrows, hacked to death or shot dead by armed raiders while at least two people, an old man and infant have been burnt to death in a house by raiders.

The situation has dramatically changed since the beginning of May with many other dynamics, including traditional rivalry between the two clans, politics and dispute over the location of the new district headquarters, among others coming into play.

Homes are deserted and most of the women and children have fled to Tanzania to escape the violence. Others are taking refuge in the relatively peaceful Kuria West, at Isebania, Kehancha and Mabera market centres or with relatives in the villages. Some are camping at local churches with the largest group being at Kegonga Catholic Church.

Some of the men from both clans have also fled to Tanzania to avoid arrests by Kenya security personnel who have been deployed to keep peace in the area. The government has recently deployed the tough and ruthless General Service \Unit (GSU) to the troubled area in addition to the regular police.

However, most men have remained around but in hiding, each day and night planning the next phase of raids or retaliatory attacks against their neighbours.

“We cannot attend to our farms and our children cannot go to school for fear of attacks,” says Esther Mwita, a resident of Nguruna village, one of the worst affected by violence. The villagers have hired Lorries, canters and pick-up to transport their property, women and children to safety.

Esther says food supplies to the area have been cut by the violence, putting the lives of hundreds of women and children at risk. While the women and children have largely been spared direct attacks and acts of violence, the conflict has turned their lives inside out. Their economic activities have been ruined and their social relationships destroyed.

There have been reports of rape of women and young girls by security personnel involved in the operations to restore peace in the area although these claims have been denied by local security and administration officials.

In some instances, local people have accused the security personnel of looting property from shops and homes during their operations.

The bloody clashes have left about 20 schools, both primary and secondary, closed, disrupting education for over 2000 learners. Several people are nursing injuries either at home or have crossed the border to seek treatment in hospitals in Tarime and Musoma towns in Tanzania.

Teachers from Bairege who were teaching in Kegonga Division and their counterparts from Nyabasi who were teaching in Ntimaru Division have fled and have been flocking to the local District Education Offices in Kegonga Market and at the Provincial Education Offices in Kisumu seeking transfers.

The area District Education Officer Mr. Francis Onyango confirmed that a number of teachers had fled in fear and that learning had been disrupted in most schools in the district. Even education officials cannot operate freely.

“This term is wasted. The violence has made it difficult for us to concentrate on our studies,” said Jane Rioba from a local secondary school which had to be closed last week due to the violence.

They were told to go for half term until “things cool down” but they are not now certain how quickly it will ease for them to resume learning. Some of their teachers have also fled to escape the violence.

The violence is spreading by the day and more areas are being engulfed in the inter clan conflict. So bad is the situation that for the last two months, vehicles from the Bairege clan have been pulled off the Ntimaru- Migori road which passes through the rival Nyabasi clan territory.

Transport to Ntimaru from Migori and Kehancha has been paralysed as the vehicles and passengers have increasingly come under attacks from bands of armed mobs.

Similarly, vehicles from Nyabasi that were plying the same route have had to be withdrawn in fear of retaliatory attacks. The inter-clan rivalry has spread to Migori Town, in neighbouring Luo community, where touts, who for some reason, appear sympathetic to the Bairege have chased away vehicles owned by the Nyabasi.

In order to beat the blockade by the Nyabasi, the Bairege have had to use a longer route, passing through Transmara, to reach Migori Town, which is the main supply point for various goods and services and the link with the rest of Kenya.

But this may only provide a temporary respite as the Bairege and the neighbouring Maasai in Transmara District have also periodically had bloody clashes over cattle rustling activities. Currently, there is a lull in the Bairege-Maasai conflict, guaranteeing them safe passage.

The government’s intervention has been through the deployment of security personnel to contain the violence but this had had little success. Indeed, the two warring clans have sought the assistance of their kin in Tanzania, through whom they are now acquiring guns, setting the stage for a deadlier conflict that has been the case before.

The local police Chief Paul Wanjama, says the government has deployed more security personnel and that the situation is under control. But local elders say the situation is getting worse and that in some areas; the bodies of victims of the violence can neither be taken to the mortuary nor be buried by their kin.

The traditional mourning and funeral rights are luxuries that the two clans can ill afford at this moment. Some relatives, especially women and children have gone missing in the process of escaping from the violence.

On June 1, the Nyanza Provincial Commissioner Paul Olando said more security personnel would be deployed to end the violence. However the level of deployment was not scaled up immediately to give religious leaders and elders a chance to bring the two warring clans to negotiate a ceasefire and talk peace.

A clergy man from the area who preferred anonymity said tension was so high that “it is practically impossible to talk peace at this time and we have to wait for a while or else we can be targeted (by either side)”

“I cannot visit my family and I am worried they can be attacked any time,” says Lucy Matiku, a teacher in Bugumbe, Kuria West who hails from Ntimaru. Most of of the teachers and other workers from the two clans currently serving in Kuria West and other parts of Kenya now avoid visiting their homes fearing they could get sucked into the conflict.

In May, officials from the Kenya National Commission of Human Rights (KNCHR) visited the area to assess the conflict. At the time the situation cooled somewhat with the intervention of peace groups led by the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC) and other religious groups.

The Kenya Red Cross Society personnel have moved to the area to provide relief serves to the injured and the starving. They have brought in food, medical supplies, blankets and mosquito nets.

With the escalation of the violence just before the ink on their report has dried, means the human rights watchdog has to probably return to the field and assess the situation a fresh.

Local leaders say the ferocity of the current inter-clan violence has surpassed any other conflict between the two clans in nearly two decades.

With essential supplies cut, farms unattended and homes deserted, the ongoing conflict in Kuria has condemned many women and children to untold suffering.

An MDC/AWC feature