A rights lobby group has teamed up with members of the minority Ogiek and Ndorobo communities seeking to stop the government from evicting them from Mt Elgon.
Also sought is an order to stop state agents, particularly the Kenya Forest Service, from approaching within 500m of the homes and spiritual sites of the Ogiek community without giving one week notice and even that in presence of the community’s legal representatives.
Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says if an order blocking the eviction is not issued the state will continue to violate the community’s rights to dignity, security and social economic rights.
The KNCHR and 11 members of the Ogiek community sued the Attorney General, KFS, the Inspector General of Police and National Land Commission.
Their suit was necessitated by the state’s action to invade the homes of the Ogiek community in 2016 and their continued harassment.
Suit papers dated June 2016 shows KFS officials invaded some of the areas where the Ogiek of Chepkitale reside in Mt Elgon, beat up people and destroyed their property in an attempt to evict them.
The Ogieks have, despite intermittent evictions by colonial and independence government, occupied the Mt Elgon area for eons as it is their ancestral land.
They depend on the land and forest for their livelihood, including food and herbal medicine.
The action of state agents to evict them took place, despite clear provision of the Constitution that ancestral land and land traditionally occupied by the hunter-gatherer community is community land.
Most importantly the eviction happened, despite several formal assurances by government agencies that the Ogieks are legally in occupation of forest as forest dwellers.
The Ogiek have continued to receive threats of eviction and some even arrested and detained, the court was told.