Some 100 Kenya Forest Service (KFS) guards started evicting Sengwer people from the Embobut forest on Dec. 29, activists said, in a case that illustrates tensions between indigenous people’s land rights and conservation projects. They left him in the forest at night alone,” Milka Chepkorir, an activist from the community, said at a news conference in Nairobi on Thursday. The KFS said it was not aware of any evictions during the Christmas and New Year period, a position that was corroborated by Kenya’s environment ministry. “Our government has continued to burn houses and chase our people from our community land. They’d rather kill us on our own land than we go suffer elsewhere,” said Yator Kiptum, a Sengwer activist.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 05, 2018 13:30 UTC