Nairobi, Kenya –1-May-2024″ ” In Mathare, one of the largest informal settlements in Nairobi, residents grapple with flood damage, loss and lack of state assistance.
Collins Obondo stood atop the rubble of a house in Mathare, one of the largest informal settlements in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, surveying the aftermath of a flood that destroyed his neighbourhood.
“This is all that’s left of my mother,” the 38-year-old said, looking down at the heap of muddy miscellaneous items gathered together on top of where her house once stood.
Last Tuesday, residents awoke in the middle of t犀利士 he night to the frantic shouts of “Maji! Maji!” (Water! Water!) after torrential rain triggered widespread flooding across the capital.
The overpopulated settlement is situated within a valley through which the Mathare River flows. The waters had begun rising sharply, reaching about 35 metres (115 feet) high, sweeping away hundreds of makeshift homes built along the riverbed and submerging thousands more
Obondo’s mother, Benna Buluma, who was a community activist known locally as “Mama Victor”, drowned in the floods. Obondo survived because he happened to be somewhere else, but his home, located beside hers, was also destroyed.
“It’s been hard to make sense of all of this,” Obondo said, adding that everyone who was home at the time died, including Buluma’s two small grandchildren who were with her at the time
The children’s fathers – Victor and Bernard – were killed by Kenyan police in 2017. In the years since, Buluma had devoted her life to demanding justice for them, along with many families who have lost loved ones to police bullets.
“My mother spent years fighting for justice for the neglected people of the slums. And it was that same government neglect she was fighting against that killed her,” Obondo said, his voice rising.
“I blame all this on the government,” he said about the loss and destruction that residents say they have been left alone to grapple with in the aftermath of the flood.
Kenya’s government announced the deployment of the military, national police, coastguard, and the national youth service to enhance its emergency response efforts across the country. Yet traumatised residents in Mathare, including Obondo, said no one from the government has come to assist them
The government says they deployed the military and the national youth service and they are stepping up search and rescue missions, but where are they? It has been a week and where are they?
I have not seen anyone here in Mathare. Not one person from the government has come to help us,” Obondo said
‘I lost my child’
In Mathare, like other informal settlements in the capital, daily life has been shaped by historic government neglect, with its almost 69,000 residents lacking adequate access to clean drinking water, electricity, proper drainage or sewage systems.
As the rising waters quickly crept towards homes last week – most of which are made from tin sheets – residents attempted to flee but could not see in the darkness. Many, including children, who were living near the riverbed were swept up into the waters and drowned before reaching the safety of higher ground
The day after the flood, Obondo began the search for his missing relatives, finding his mother’s body and some of his relatives and neighbours. However, the bodies of Buluma’s small grandchildren have still not been found.
According to the Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC), a community-based human rights organisation, more than 40 bodies have so far been retrieved from the river. But there are at least dozens of residents still missing
About 800 families in Mathare, comprising thousands of people, have become homeless after their houses were completely destroyed, while at least 2,000 homes are now uninhabitable.
Mathare’s narrow alleyways are still littered with debris. Water drips from draped clothes hanging on ropes tied between shacks. Wet mattresses and broken furniture are piled atop puddles and mud. Displaced residents sift through the rubble in an attempt to salvage any of their belongings that remain.
Without government assistance, those with missing relatives are also resorting to digging through the wreckage with makeshift tools and hammers to find the bodies of their loved ones.
Days after the flood, Al Jazeera saw one distraught man shovelling through mud and debris with a broken bottle. “I am trying to find my child,” he said. “I lost my child.”
El Nino
Across the country, lives have been devastated by floods and flash floods over recent weeks. Since March, Kenya has been battered by above-average rainfall, exacerbated by climate change and the effects of the El Nino weather pattern, which is typically associated with increased heat worldwide and leads to drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains in others.
According to the government, at least 169 people throughout the country have so far been killed in floods and landslides caused by the heavy rains, while more than 185,000 have been displaced. Nairobi has been among the worst affected, with tens of thousands of families made homeless.
While El Nino often has devastating consequences in the East Africa region – last year, more than 300 people died in rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia – residents in Mathare say this time was different.