Letter from Kenya

By Natalia Cieslik

Photo: IMC

Deployed as part of IMC’s emergency response team four weeks ago, senior communications specialist, Natalia Cieslik, reflects on the impact of the turbulent, bloody crisis in Kenya that has left 250,000 displaced and nearly 1,000 people dead.

Eldoret, Kenya - After four weeks of bloodshed, delivering life-saving assistance in Kenya is more urgent than ever, but the lack of security hampers efforts of aid agencies to reach out to those in need. The urban slums in Nairobi remain largely off limits for aid workers and roads connecting cities in the west are difficult to pass since marauding gangs have set up barricades.

The fate of Kenya depends on how willing its political leaders are to give up their aspirations for power in favor of restoring peace. What started as a disputed election result at the end of December has now left the country deeply divided and its people at the mercy of violent gangs acting in the name of tribal and political affiliations.

The poorest are taking the brunt of the fighting that turned their lives and homes into battlefields. About 250,000 are displaced, more than 900 are dead, and Kenya’s economy, praised as the one of Africa’s most stable and promising, is on the verge of collapsing.

Women and children suffer the most and remain vulnerable to attacks even after they fled the wielding mobs, huddling in church yards and police stations. Their homes have often been torched and, at least for now, they have no place to go back to even if security were to be restored. The camps they have set up in the worst hit areas like the western Rift Valley still lack sufficient water, shelter, and medical care.

Photo: Natalia Cieslik

Perched on a bed of dry grass, a small boy crawls outside IMC’s mobile clinic in Eldoret, a city in one of the country’s hardest hit regions, the Rift Valley Province. Their homes destroyed and belongings lost in the violence, women and children are some of the Kenya’s most devastated, as they line up seeking treatment for upper respiratory infections, diarrhea, malaria, and other ailments by the hundreds each day.

Diarrhea, upper respiratory infections, and psychosocial disorder are troubling the displaced, their health another victim of the violence. HIV and TB patients are defaulting on their treatment, a serous step backward from Kenya’s public health achievements.

Security permitting, International Medical Corps has been operating mobile clinics in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, and in Eldoret, a major city in the Rift Valley. Every day the IMC teams have to decide whether it is safe enough to venture out and open the clinics, where people are standing in line for badly needed primary health care.

After a second opposition politician was killed last week in Eldoret, the country once again is holding its breath anticipating yet another wave of violence. The displaced cannot wait any longer for help and aid agencies like International Medical Corps are trying to assist them – every day that we are able to reach them.

Natalia Cieslik is a senior communications specialist for International Medical Corps. She was deployed to Kenya as part of the emergency response team.