More than 600 families spent the night outside in the cold after their houses were burned by unknown arsonists.
The suspected arson incident comes after the houses of the families who have been living in Diani, Kwale County were demolished on January 16. They put up temporary structures later until the night of February 8, when they were set ablaze by unknown people.
According to Shaaban Luchesi, the residents went to court after their houses were demolished but they found that there was a pending case related to the same Maruma land filed in 2004. The ruling issued back then was that the residents should be given 100 acres of the land while 900 acres be left for Maruma farm.
The documents submitted to the court showed that the court ruling was not upheld. However, the 1000 acres of land was later sold to a private investor, a move Luchesi termed as a violation of the law.
Luchesi said the current residents of the 100-acre land did not know anything about the earlier court case.
"It was inhumane for our houses to be demolished without even getting an eviction notice, "said Luchesi. "This has made us to lose a lot of property,"he added.
Having lived in that land for very many years, cultivated there as well as buried their loved ones there, Luchesi said that they are the legal owners of the land. He called for the government’s intervention to resolve the land dispute.
In another unrelated incident, the residents of Bungoma suffered huge losses after Kenya Railways demolished a mall, hospital, popular hotel and other businesses.
The demolished property was said to be on land belonging to the Railways Corporation. Dawameds Hospital opposite the Bungoma County Assembly, the Railways Park shopping mall, and a local hotel were brought down by excavators that carried out the demolishing.
Some of the traders said that they had received a notice on the demolishing of the property. They managed to salvage their property while those who suffered the loss said that there was no notice issued to them.
The demolitions carried out by the Railways Corporation has seen thousands of traders lose property worth millions.
