Newborn a fitting antidote to man’s inhumanity to man

DAVID MORAA was born at 8am on Friday, weighing nearly eight pounds, to a happy mother and some 9,000 neighbours in a field.

The Kenyan baby is among five born into the mass refugee camp in Nakuru, western Kenya, in recent days.

After just hours at a makeshift clinic in the camp without doctors, David’s mother Nora walked with her newborn son back to her remaining few belongings.

Having fled her home, Nora, her husband and her five children, as well as her newborn David, now live at Nakuru’s showgrounds. It’s also home to about 8,900 Luo tribespeople, supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga.

“It was difficult especially as there are no delivery kits and I went into labour in the field,” explained the 35-year-old mother through a translator.

But the Moraa family are, in fact, lucky to be alive after being run out of their home in Londiani, 80km north of Nakuru.

“The house was burnt and we went to a Catholic church, but it became so hard, that’s why we came here,” added Ms Moraa.

Nurse Monica Muthoni, who helped deliver recent births at the Nakuru showgrounds camp, said helpers were “trying to improvise” without proper equipment and doctors.

The refugee camp is in addition to another on the other side of city at the sports stadium which is holding 9,400 Kikuyu refugees, supporters of re-elected President Mwai Kibaki.

NGOs and camp supervisors at Nakuru now estimate there are just over 52,000 people displaced or in refugee camps across 71 locations in the whole district.

Nakuru showground camp manager Jesse Njoroge stressed how volatile the situation was.

“The most urgent needs are accommodation, like tents, as well as medical supplies to treat the injured and qualified people use them.”

“We’re trying to run all over the place to get scraps, but it’s just not enough. We have people with arrow wounds and ones from pangas (machetes)” he said.

In the Luo refugee camp, there have been eight deaths in recent days following earlier injuries from ethnic clashes.

Only 100 police guard perimeters around the thousands of refugees, whose occupants include people who have fled from as far as Kisumu, more than 200km away.

Meanwhile, Nora Moraa has settled back down in the camp field with her newborn son, David.

Despite despairing conditions, the mother of six managed to joke.

“I think this is my last one,” she said.