Over 100 residents of Ngelani village in Mavoko, Machakos County spent night in the cold after their houses were demolished over land dispute.
They included women and children, daughters’ in-law, grandchildren and great grandchildren of 80-year-old Mary Muli and her deceased husband Charles Muli.
Athi River subcounty police commander Anderson Njagi said the evictions conducted by an individual who was in land dispute with the elderly woman’s family was illegal.
Njagi said the unnamed person who used goons to demolish over 20 structures belonging to the family and completely ejected them from the land had got no valid eviction order to do so.
The 67 hacres land in dispute had been fenced by the individual using goons barely a month ago, an incident that led to gory scenes after a confrontation between locals and the hired men.
Ten of the goons were seriously beaten in the confrontation and were rescued by police officers leading to arrests of one of Mary’s son Joseph Muli and daughter in-law Winfred Kivulu. Muli has been held at Athi River police station for more than a week now, while Kivulu was arrested last Friday.
The evictees claimed that despite being thrown out of the land, they were still being threatened of more arrests.
Despite Njagi’s denial that police officers were not involved in the eviction, the family members maintained that some officers accompanied the goons armed with crude weapons as they demolished the houses
Agnes said apart from demolishing their houses, their households were also destroyed including utensils, electronics, and food.
Their uncle Charles Munyau said they settled on the land in 1965 after acquiring it in 1963.
Munyau said they had all documents to prove ownership. They questioned why their houses were demolished yet there was an active land case in Machakos High Court.