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2008-01-22 issue:

Kenyan church leaders face refugee crisis

After post-election violence, more than 300,000 people are displaced in Kenya.

by Jewel Showalter

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Following a week of post-election violence, leaders in Kisumu, a city in the western region of Kenya, reports that hundreds are dead in Kisumu alone, and international news reports indicate more than 300,000 people have been displaced across Kenya.

Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city, has been the center of much of the violence, and many major businesses are gutted. Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) is working collaboratively with Mennonite Central Committee and Kenyan partners to provide relief in the region.

“We have released initial emergency funds to purchase food, blankets and tarps for displaced people in the Kisumu and Olepolos regions,” says Clair Good, representative to Africa at EMM. “But we hope to send more aid to other regions as funds become available.”

EMM requests immediate donations for emergency assistance to Kenya.

In Songhor, the Kisumu East Diocese, Mennonite bishop Clyde Agola says that more than 1,500 refugees from Kisumu region are camped at the local police station for protection. Around 700 of the refugees are children, and all are in desperate need of water, food, shelter and medicine.

The EMM Kenya Youth Evangelism Service (YES) team based in Songhor (Ben Yutzy, Melissa Eby, Monica Stoltzfus and Becky Jordan) bought all available maize and water-treatment supplies to share with the refugee leaders before departing for Nairobi on Jan. 6.

Other EMM workers in Kenya are all based in Nairobi and include Nevin and Barbara Kraybill at the Mennonite Guest House, Brent and Katrina Siegrist at Rosslyn Academy, and Mike and Cindy Brislen.

In Kisumu West, Mennonite bishop Dominic Opondo is working with 2,000 refugees. The Olepolos Mennonite Church is caring for the needs of more than 1,000 refugees in Ololulunga. Over half of them are children.

In a Jan. 7 phone call to Good, Bishop Philip Okeyo, general secretary of Kenya Mennonite Church, reported that people all over the country are in dire need of assistance. The churches are responding with their limited resources, working to supply blankets, tarps and potable water, but they do not have the financial capacity to meet the overwhelming needs. Church members are risking their lives to shelter refugees, minister to those affected by the fighting and work for peace and reconciliation.

Ibrahim and Diane Omondi, leaders of Dove Kenya and EMM advisors, report that Christians from many churches gathered at the downtown Anglican cathedral in Nairobi on Jan. 6 to repent before one another and pray for healing.

“It was a precious time, when tribal conflicts were openly acknowledged in an attitude of repentance,” Omondis says. “But any lasting solution must put in place a process that will bring out the truth and emphasize repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.”

In this relief effort EMM will be collaborating with EMM partner churches from various tribes across Kenya.—Jewel Showalter and Nita Landis of EMM

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