Where prison is the most civilised place

Ethnic bloodbath leaves thousands stranded, Juno McEnroe reports from the Rift Valley, Kenya.

USING a toothbrush to clean dust off her bed space on the prison building floor, a young girl gazes up inquiring in her school English: “how are you?”.

Of course I reply “fine”. I am. Unlike the thousands of hungry and frightened refugees alongside me.

It is estimated more than 3,000 fleeing villagers have taken refuge in Naivasha’s prison grounds.

This is the aftermath of Kenya’s ethnic bloodbath, which has seen neighbour turn on neighbour since last month’s contested election.

It seemed like business as usual for many villages in the Rift Valley yesterday as buses passed pavements and shops opened doors for the first time since the weekend’s violent clashes.

Away from the eyes of the occasional tourist though, displaced families have taken refuge in churches, behind police lines and, now, in prison facilities. It is their only protection. Conditions are deteriorating fast though. Many also never made it that far.

In Naivasha’s district hospital, you can smell the wounds before you see the victims. After running out of beds, doctors have had to set up victims under the blazing sun outside wards. Some recount their injuries as medics change bandages.

Nursing gashes on his head, father-of-six Vincent Otiendo, 42, described how a mob attacked his family: “I hid in my house. They ordered my wife and children to go away. They smashed my house and then they started beating me. They stoned my head several times and my legs but I tried to defend myself and God bless me, when I got a chance I just ran away,” said the flower industry employee.

Inside the hospital wards, the luckier are on drips and beds.

An electrician described how his bus from Nairobi to the western city of Kisumu was stopped by armed men who then slashed him with machetes.

“They asked me which tribe I am but I stayed silent and they just started beating me,” said Charles Oluoch.

On the streets, fighting tribes burn and kill each other. But inside the town’s hospital they lie side by side.

Towards the end of one ward, two teenage boys sit rigid upright on one bed, one unable to see out of his bruised eyes, the other barely able to speak.

A while later, I look back and both David Ochorp and Fred Rizungo still sit motionless having not touched their bean and rice lunch on their laps.

Another young man explained his injuries grimacing, as a nurse pulled soaked bandages from his upper leg.

“The bullet went through it,” said father-of-four Daniel Conoki, 30, explaining how police had shot him, after forcing him to strip naked and run into the street.

Half a mile away in Naivasha, Luo refugees, the tribe of opposition leader Raila Odinga, have spent several days on the grounds of the police station. In fear of their lives, they will not leave. Local flower farm trucks bring lucky groups from the thousands huddled behind the wire mesh to safer places.

Inside the grounds, families huddle under lorries, dust-choked children lie without water or shelter under the midday sun.

Their fear? The Kikuyu tribes people-backers of President Mwai Kibaki who began burning and killing them last weekend. The warning? Leave town.

Further out of town another several thousand Luos tribes people have taken refuge on the grounds of the maximum security prison complex. In the prison church, gospel music keeps the children playing as mothers gather blankets in pews.

A priest, Reverend Tobias Gudeon Guiya, who fled Nakuru fearing the tribal clashes says something needs to be done before conditions get out of control.

Hedges on the complex have become homes, a phone box is used as storage for water buckets and violence among those trapped here has already broken out.

Mothers plea for food, water, a sign that something is on the way, but nothing. It is estimated between 8,000 and 10,000 people have taken refugee in Naivasha.

A small number in Kenyan terms no doubt, but these horrific conditions are behind closed doors, gates and fences. Back in town, other tribes go about business as normal. But really, none of this is normal and won’t be for months or even years to come.