"Signs in Kenya of a Land Redrawn by Ethnicity"
"Kenya used to be considered one of the most promising countries in Africa. Now it is in the throes of ethnically segregating itself. Ever since a deeply flawed election in December kicked off a wave of ethnic and political violence, hundreds of thousands of people have been violently driven from their homes and many are now resettling in ethnically homogenous zones....
The bloodletting across the country that has killed more than 1,000 people since the election seems to have subsided in the past week. But the trucks piled high with mattresses, furniture, blankets and children keep chugging across the countryside, an endless convoy of frightened people who in their desperation are redrawing the map of Kenya....
The government is lending a hand in the country’s separation, at least for the moment. Police officers are escorting people back to their ancestral homes, as the government calls them, which seems to be thinly veiled language for ethnic separation....
The United Nations estimates that at least 600,000 people have been uprooted. About half have gone to camps in churches, police stations, stables and prisons. The living conditions are often horrible.
“Now they’re eating rats,” read a headline in a Kenyan newspaper."
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