An Indigenous community in central Kenya is facing escalating violence and forced displacement, as attacks on the Yaaku people of Mukogodo Forest expose deep-rooted patterns of land dispossession and state neglect.
The Yaaku, whose ancestral territory spans the 30,000-hectare Mukogodo Forest reserve, have been subjected to a wave of coordinated armed attacks since late January, resulting in killings, livestock theft, and the displacement of entire communities.
Escalating attacks raise alarm
Between January 21 and 29, Yaaku settlements were repeatedly targeted by heavily armed groups operating with apparent coordination and mobility. The violence began with a raid on a National Police Reserve camp in Wakumbé, where attackers reportedly seized more than 1,200 livestock.
Days later, armed groups returned in larger numbers. On January 27, two community members were killed and around 1,500 livestock stolen. The following day saw a further escalation, with eight people killed in a single हमला and additional livestock taken. By January 29, continued raids triggered attempts by Yaaku residents to recover stolen animals, during which another young community member was killed.
The East Africa Indigenous Women Led Assembly (EAIWA) has condemned the attacks, warning that they reflect a sustained and organized campaign rather than isolated incidents. However, authorities and sections of the media have continued to describe the perpetrators as “bandits,” a characterization critics say downplays the scale and coordination of the violence.
State response shifts blame to victims
Despite prior warnings, security forces failed to prevent the attacks or provide meaningful protection. Instead, the state response has focused on eviction.
On February 3, Kenya’s Ministry of Interior issued a 48-hour ultimatum ordering residents to vacate the forest. On the same day, political leaders made statements portraying Mukogodo as a criminal zone—effectively casting the Indigenous community as a security threat rather than victims of violence.
Rights groups say this response reflects a broader pattern in Kenya, where Indigenous and pastoralist communities are criminalized and displaced in the name of security, conservation, or development.
“This is a reversal of responsibility,” advocates say. “The state has failed to protect the community, and is now moving to remove them.”
Land conflict at the center
Observers stress that the violence cannot be separated from long-standing disputes over land and resources. Mukogodo Forest, long stewarded by the Yaaku through Indigenous ecological practices, has increasingly come under pressure from conservation agendas, private interests, and elite land accumulation.
According to EAIWA, the scale and targeting of the attacks—combined with state eviction threats—raise serious concerns that the violence is being used to drive displacement. Under international law, such patterns may amount to ethnic cleansing when force is used to remove a distinct community from its ancestral land.
For the Yaaku, the stakes are both material and cultural. Their displacement would not only strip them of their land and livelihoods but also erode generations of knowledge that have sustained the forest ecosystem.
Growing solidarity from social movements
The crisis has drawn condemnation from grassroots organizations, including the Social Justice Centres Working Group in Nairobi, which issued a statement of solidarity with the Yaaku community.
The movement criticized the state’s inaction during the attacks and rejected narratives that criminalize Indigenous peoples, warning against the normalization of violence as a tool for land grabbing.
Speaking to Peoples Dispatch, activist Gerald Kamau linked the Mukogodo crisis to broader struggles across Kenya:
“We can no longer afford to fight separately. The urban struggle against austerity is tied to the Indigenous struggle for land. When land is taken in rural areas, food sovereignty is undermined. When public spaces are taken in cities, people lose the ability to organize.”
Kamau emphasized that environmental, economic, and social justice struggles are interconnected, arguing that displacement in Mukogodo reflects a wider system of inequality and elite control over land and resources.
