• In early August, the Land Ministry nullified over 1,274 title deeds in advance of the evictions.
• According to their research, the officials beat people, torched homes, and destroyed crops, leaving thousands of people homeless and stranded in the cold.
Investigate security officials who abuse Mau forest evictees, Human Rights Watch has said.
In a statement on Friday, Africa researcher Otsieno Namwaya said the government has conducted evictions in an abusive, unlawful manner.
“In efforts to preserve Mau forest, the government is not following its own guidelines. The way the government is carrying out the evictions raises serious human rights concerns," he said.
Environment CS Keriako Tobiko insisted that all encroachers must leave the forest or they will be evicted.
More than 100 Kenya Forest Service officers have been dispatched from the Narok county ecosystem coordinator’s offices.
They have been deployed to three camps in the forest to carry out the second phase of evictions, targeting some 60,000 families.
But Namwaya said their investigations revealed that security officials in Narok used excessive force to evict the communities.
He claimed that nine people, including two babies, died during the eviction.
According to their research, the officials beat people, torched homes, and destroyed crops, leaving thousands of people homeless and stranded in the cold.
Namwaya said four people are still missing adding that families have received no police support to search for their missing relatives.
"The government has not investigated the deaths, injuries, and other abuses, though at least 30 families reported them to police stations in Narok," he said.
Two senior government officials in Narok revealed to the Watch that the official debriefing report described the abuses, including destruction of settlements, food crops, and stores, and brutal treatment of the residents.
“The number of houses burned or the number of those injured is in the debriefing report, which we can’t share,” the official said.
In early August, the Land Ministry nullified over 1,274 title deeds in advance of the evictions.
Families with titles have filed a challenge in a Nakuru court, but government officials say that everyone involved, with or without titles, will be evicted.
Namwaya said security officers used power saws to cut down houses or, in other instances, simply torched them.
Victims said the security officers beat residents with big sticks and gun butts, injuring hundreds, and arrested and detained many others during the three-day operation.
“When I heard that evictions had started, I left church and went to check on my house,” a 41-year-old man told HRW. “Police blocked me on the way, beating me up. Police were beating anyone who tried to access the houses.”
Kenya adopted guidelines on evictions in 2009, three years after another violent eviction from Mau forest that the government halted following a court order.
According to the guidelines, those being evicted should be given prior notification of at least three months, published in the official government gazette and served to the affected people individually or, where that is not possible, pinned in an open place where everyone can see it
The guidelines require the authorities to ensure that no one is left homeless and to ensure adequate consultation with affected communities to develop or communicate a comprehensive plan for resettlement and compensation.