29 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Kenyan President William Ruto has announced the start of a plan to relocate 35,000 Maasai tribesmen who were evicted from Mau Forest land in 2019 for use in the form of a nature park; a decision that has been a catastrophe for the community, especially due to the closure of the schools assigned to the tribe in the Rift Valley area.
Researchers from the NGO Human Rights Watch found that in early July 2018, a combined team of Forest, Wildlife, County and National Administration police fanned out into the forest to begin the forcible eviction of the community. mau. At least nine people, including two babies, died during the eviction.
The authorities argued that the eviction was necessary to prevent deforestation and encroachment on protected lands, while the affected Maasai have tried to validate their property titles before the country’s courts. The initiative has not been successful because the Kenyan authorities decided at the time that the papers had been issued by corrupt officials.
Ruto has promised to compensate the tribe for the decision carried out during the term of his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, as he made known in a speech delivered during an interfaith mass in the southwestern city of Narok.
“The question of the Mau forest is settled, for my part. It is time to start planting trees, installing water towers and looking for an alternative settlement for these evicted,” said the president in comments collected by the newspaper’s Sunday weekly. ‘The Nation’.
In October last year, a local court sided with the Nigerian government in its decision to evict the Maasai from the land, resulting in the closure of 15 surrounding schools. Since then, Maasai families have denounced that their children, without the protection of the school, have been exposed to labor and sexual exploitation in the labor camps in the area, where they are now housed.
