Eastleigh Reports

Eastleigh is located in the Eastern part of Nairobi within Pumwani and Kamkunji divisions of Nairobi. At the intermediate scale it is surrounded by high density residential areas to the West and East and is within two Page 4 major primary roads (Juja and Jogoo). It lies approximately 4 km east of the City Centre and covers a total area of about 120 hectares. It is bounded by Moi 82 Air Base to the East, Juja Road to the Northwest, Nairobi River to the South and New Pumwani Estate to the West. Eastleigh was founded in 1921. At this time, it was formally called Nairobi East Township and was mostly populated by Somalis who had moved from the Ngara Plains. While the colonial government originally tried to segregate citizens by race and ethnicity, failures at doing so in the Eastleigh neighbourhood more or less stopped the practice under colonial rule, so class became the general segregating factor, afterwards Also coined ‘Small-Mogadishu’ for being a dislocated proxy seat of government of a disintegrated country, Eastleigh with its approximately 100.000 inhabitants represents one of the largest Somali cities, and the second largest contiguous Somali community outside of Somalia itself. Because of the relatively well-established infrastructure in Nairobi, it is assuming administrative functions of the barely operating capital of Mogadishu.

Eastleigh area is a home to predominantly Somali immigrants who moved to the country following the toppling of the Siad Barre government in the early 1990’s in Somalia. However, the area founded in the year 1921 was not meant to be a home for the Somali nor the Africans. The area was set out to be home to the Indians as well as the African elites at the time. Nevertheless, the area is now encroached with a majorly Somali population. Migrants in Eastleigh, located in East Nairobi, are predominantly Somali, Ethiopian, and Oromo. They depart their home countries for voluntary and non-voluntary reasons. A small fraction of this population have formal recognition as refugees or asylum seekers which entitles them to a degree of health care and social services. However, the vast majority are irregular migrants which directly impacts upon their access to vital health care services. Lack of strategic data and the misclassification of populations as “refugees” contributes towards the invisibility of urban migrants, who are often overlooked in health policies, strategies, and multisector responses. This has negative consequences for the entire community, including the migrants’ country of destination.

Past empirical studies concur that the Eastleigh area has been a target of many terror attacks from terror suspects. Additionally, the residents of Eastleigh area especially those of the Somali descent have been facing harassment by the Kenyan Security Forces. The Kenyan Police especially the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) has been widely blamed for kidnapping, torture as well as extra-judicial killings of suspected terror suspects and radical Kadhis. Against this background, the researcher sought to evaluate the perceptions of the respondents on security in the Eastleigh area.

While COVID -19 is primarily affecting public health, spill over effects can already be observed in food security and education, stemming largely from extended curfew time and unemployment due to many business collapsing. This extension by Kenyan government will completely disengage citizens and poverty level has increased and a lot of Kenyans are suffering due to high cost of living and lack of meals. As such, HANDS FOF DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION organized a rapid identification and mapping of 96 households in Eastleigh urban informal settlement to provide support to respond to this situation through efforts such as providing food hampers to them. To this end, HANDS FOR DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION is working with the said number of household and in this way, our objective to provide food to this family continues remotely and gives this families chance to experience this time of COVID-19 pandemic in a useful way. Current food security situation is getting worse and food aid demand is not met fully as health and nutrition situation of the area households deteriorate while vulnerability increases by day.

While HANDS FOR DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION was doing its humanitarian activity of feeding the less fortunate in the area we observed some challenges that some illegal immigrants and also some less fortunate Somali Kenyans are going through and we manage to do some interviews as a result what we found out is so heartbreaking and calls for humanity from all over the world to assist them.

During this month of June 12, 2021 HANDS FOR DEVELOPMENT donated food stuff to 96 households to the less fortunate and some immigrants most of whom are single mothers and people with disability from Eastleigh area received the care package and thanked them plus the donors who made this great sadaka.

Wrapping down some of the challenges they go through are:

• Illiteracy level is very high
• Low income and high poverty level
• Poor health condition as vest majority can’t afford medical bills and some don’t have documents so they fear being caught and being deported
• Radicalization of youth as they are promised heavens and a lot of money in exchange to carry out terror activities in Kenya.
• Harassment and injustice from police is also a key challenge.

Recommendations

• Firstly, the Kenyan Government need to implement reforms in its security forces to ensure that they operate in a humane way, and they conduct their operations in adherence to the letter and spirit of the constitution as well as other local and international laws on Human rights. HANDS FOR DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION is willing to provide education to these Kenyans on their right and duties as both Kenyans and refugee immigrants to prevent harassment and also take court action for those whose rights have been infringed, this can only be achieved through getting funds from our donors and help advocate for universal human rights as we are all equal before the law and no one is superior.
• Secondly, the government should implement and entrench community policing locally known as the Nyumba Kumi initiative in this case, the security forces will be capable of preventing crime in such areas as Eastleigh. Additionally, increased interaction among neighbours will greatly enhance the perceptions of neighbours about each other and thus enhance their trust. Overall, implementation of these recommendations will greatly improve the perceptions of the residents in Eastleigh on the Security forces as well as enhance their trust as neighbours in the area. In retrospect, they are likely to feel safer in the area.
• Thirdly, community sensation is very important on the issue of education as the world is moving into different phase it’s important to help the future generation “kids” get into school and help them through the journey until they achieve something great in life. And for the old ones get them through adult school so that people will not look down to them.
• Formulate strategy on coming up with medical insurance for this people or building a hospital where they can access freely with fear or intimidation from Kenyan government.