Friends of the Rail Forum

KENYA: More than 50,000 people at risk of imminent forced eviction

Author: CISA
Date: Mon 26 Apr 10

Nairobi, April 23– The Kenyan government should halt the proposed eviction of more than 50,000 people living alongside the country’s railway lines until guidelines that conform with international human rights standards have been adopted, Amnesty International has said.

On 21 March, Kenya Railways published a notice giving residents 30 days to pull down their structures and leave, or risk prosecution. Most of those affected are slum dwellers in parts of Nairobi.

“People have been living and working on these lands for years and a thirty-day notice period is wholly inadequate,” said Justus Nyang’aya, Director of Amnesty International Kenya.

“Without proper safeguards, the proposed mass evictions will have a devastating impact on people’s access to water, sanitation, food and schools and could well create a humanitarian emergency.”

“They will result in forced evictions, which contravene Kenya’s obligations under international human rights laws.”

“While it is recognised that the government is taking important steps to upgrade the railway system, for the tens of thousands of people living in the affected area, the demolition of homes and informal businesses will be socially and economically disastrous.” Nyang’aya insists.

“To date, no comprehensive re-settlement or compensation plan has been announced and the government appears to have made no provision for those who will lose their homes, livelihoods, possessions and social networks as a result of the project.” He claims

Under international human rights law, evictions should only be carried out as a last resort and only after all other feasible alternatives to eviction have been explored in genuine consultation with affected communities.

Governments are also obliged to ensure that no one is rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights as a consequence of eviction.

“Kenya’s government is failing to deliver on its promise to put in place guidelines which comply with international human rights law regarding evictions and until it does, it should halt all mass evictions of this nature,” said Justus Nyang’aya.

“To put 50,000 of your poorest and most vulnerable citizens at risk of homelessness is unacceptable,” he added.

The estimated 50,000 people at risk of forced evictions used in this press release is based on government figures from a study commissioned in 2005.

As a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Government of Kenya is legally obliged to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate housing, including the prohibition on forced evictions, as guaranteed under Article 11 (1).

The Kenyan government has made commitments to various international bodies that it will adopt eviction guidelines, which will incorporate safeguards and due process. To date, this commitment has not been honoured.

Bid to expand city railway held back as squatters stay put

By JOHN NGIRACHU
Posted Monday, May 3 2010 at 21:00
Daily Nation



In Summary

* Deadline to vacate railway land reserve lapses but residents refuse to budge

The Kenya Railways Corporation maintains that all those living on land reserved for the expansion of the railway line must move away.

A 30-day deadline issued on March 21 has come and gone, but from what the Nation observed in Kibera on Saturday morning, the residents are not about to budge.

According to Kenya Railways managing director Nduva Muli, the residents have no option but to make way for the upgrade to begin once plans for financing are complete.

Demolish houses

“Now that we have given them time to plan to move, we will move into action as soon as it is viable,” he said, adding that it could also involve having to demolish the houses and forcefully evicting the slum dwellers.

“We hope we will not have to come to that (forceful eviction), but we want to try to get it done this year if we are to finish the upgrades by 2012 as planned,” Mr Muli said in an interview.

He said a recently completed study has established that it will cost about $250 million (Sh20 billion) to revamp the commuter service in Nairobi.

Of this, $200 million (Sh15 billion) would be raised by issuing an infrastructure bond and the rest would come from the government’s annual budget.

Mr Muli said the design of a new railway line to link Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the city centre is also complete.

The line will terminate at Unit 3, the domestic departures and arrivals area.

The upgrade will also include the replacement of the current aged locomotive and coaches with 40 new train sets of the Diesel Electric Multiple Units.

The “show-stoppers” to this project, said Mr Muli, are the encroachers living, working and in some cases even walking, right next to the railway, and the loosely organised matatu terminus at the Nairobi Railway Station.

Trains currently move at a maximum 20 kilometres per hour through the slum, a far cry from the average 70-90 kilometres per hour the new trains would move at to be efficient to commuters.

“A line moving through the encroached area at that speed would be dangerous,” Mr Muli said.

As it is currently, said James Nyambari, Rift Valley Railways general manager for the eastern region, the operator’s biggest headache stems from dumping of garbage on the track.

“People are employed almost daily to remove the trash from the railway and then wagons are used to take it away. We cannot do any useful work that way,” he said.

Sewage also overflows onto the track in some areas, making it muddy and slippery, the result of which is excess wheel slip that could lead to an accident like the one that happened at Mashimoni last December.

Wheel slip also makes it hard for a locomotive to pull the required number of wagons from the Nairobi station and in some cases RVR has to use two engines to pull the train.

In other cases, said Mr Nyambari, half the load has to be transferred to the Kibera station first as the engine cannot pull all the wagons on the slippery track.

A worst case scenario painted by the operators is the derailment of a train carrying something as dangerous as Liquid Petroleum Gas, which could set off a fire with damage of unimaginable proportions to houses that are close to each other.

The dangers are obvious, but the residents are apparently not ready to make the move until the bulldozers are on site and the policemen approaching.

Kenya Railways has been making efforts to convince the residents to move by inviting them to forums, the last of which will be held on Tuesday.

Past forums have involved the encroachers from the rail-side slums of Mukuru at the Railway Training Institute and those from Kibera at the Bomas of Kenya.

At both sessions, the residents asked for more time to relocate, and their pleas have also been picked up by NGOs that say it would contravene residents’ right to housing.

People’s access

In a statement dated April 23, the day after the expiry of the eviction deadline, the country director of Amnesty International Mr Justus Nyang’aya asked for the extension of the notice.

“Without proper safeguards, the proposed mass evictions will have a devastating impact on people’s access to water, sanitation, food and schools and could well create a humanitarian emergency,” he said.

“They will result in forced evictions, which contravene Kenya’s obligations under international human rights laws,” he added, saying about 50,000 people would be affected.

“While it is recognised that the government is taking important steps to upgrade the railway system, for the tens of thousands of people living in the affected area, the demolition of homes and informal businesses will be socially and economically disastrous,” he added.

He said no comprehensive resettlement or compensation plan had been made public and the government appears to have made no provision for those that will lose their livelihoods if the eviction goes ahead as planned.

He that claimed under international human rights law, evictions should only be carried out as a last resort and only after all other feasible alternatives to eviction have been explored in genuine consultation with affected communities.

Mr Muli said the corporation has a “Relocation Action Plan” being carried out with the World Bank for the residents of Mukuru and Kibera.

This, he said, would ensure they do not lose their livelihoods when they eventually move away, and it is understood that the plan would also involve the construction of a wall on the reserve land border.

Currently, the reserve land on 100 feet of either side of the track is marked by a series of upright rail steel bars planted into the ground.

Residents know it and easily showed the Nation where they stood during a recent visit. Most of them insisted they have lived there all their lives, have built houses there and would have nowhere to go if they were to be removed forcefully.

But that, for now, seems to be the only prospect if the Kenya Railways Corporation is to live up to its March 21 promise in an advert in the Sunday newspapers.

I cannot beleive why you need to get a court interdict to get someone off your own land. Just tell them when you're going to come with the bulldozer and pitch! THEN, have the bright idea that a fence might be a good idea and barb wire your land in.

Well, almost every country in the world has some form of squatter's rights. If you've lived on empty, unused, unfenced land for decades (in some cases for generations) and the owner has never challenged you, then you can demand certain due process before you are evicted. Also, if a couple of families become homeless it is a problem only for them. However if 50,000 people become homeless overnight, it is a huge social, economic and possibly security problem for the city and the country. Of course it's immensely frustrating for the railway and the commuters, but there are various rights to be balanced here, and a need to seek the best solution for everyone.