Nubian IDPs in Kenya

English: Nairobi (Kenya) Skyline from the city center, 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Slum Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This blog is about the Nubians Internally Displaced Persons in Kibra, on the outskirt of Nairobi, Kenya.

Definition of IDP

Persons or group of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of, or in order to avoid the effect of armed conflict, situation of generalized violence.

Nubians occupied Kibra, a 4000 acre piece of land on the outskirt of Nairobi – the capitol city of Kenya since mid 19th century. Nairobi was not the capitol city at the time. The land was given as a gift to the Sudanese soldiers who were brought to Kenya by the then British colonial government.

However, lack of security of tenure for the Kibra land has been used to push them away from their surveyed plots to give way to ‘ sputtering ‘ housing upgrading projects that have hardly benefited the Nubian community, as majority of them became landless and homeless.

These demolitions and evictions took place between 1968 and 2001, to give way to the following development projects:

. Jamhuri estate in 1968

. Otiende estate        1968 – 1979

. Salama and Fort Jesus     1963 – 1969

. Olympic estate  1968

. Ayany  estate  1977 – 1980

Persons displaced by development projects have special needs precisely because of their displacement. They may require special protection in cases where they are forcibly displaced without resettlement, compensation or respect for human rights. This is true whether they are in camps or merged into urban slums. This is true in the case of the displaced Nubians in Kibra.

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