MP: Marsabit clashes raising number of widows, orphans

MP: Marsabit clashes raising number of widows, orphans

What you need to know:

  • Marsabit County Woman Representative Saffia Sheik Adan, says many families are robbed of their livelihoods and inheritance as their property is destroyed, livestock stolen, and many internally displaced.

  • She notes that Northern Kenya risks becoming the region with the largest number of widows and orphans.

Hundreds of widows and orphans in Marsabit County suffer crushing poverty as their numbers continue to swell by proliferation of ethnic conflicts in the region.

With the prevalence of poverty and suffering related to ethnic conflicts and bloodletting, Marsabit County Woman Representative Saffia Sheik Adan, warns that if the situation remains unchecked the numbers might swell to unmanageable proportions.

“I fear that if the ethnic clashes are not checked in Marsabit and Northern Kenya as whole, we risk being the region with the largest number of widows and orphans,” Ms Adan said.

Raise awareness

She spoke at Loglogo Assistant Commissioner’s office recently, when she disbursed bursary worth Sh2,225,000 to needy secondary students across the county.

Marsabit Woman Rep speaks on fight against FGM

Ms Adan called for intensive efforts to raise awareness of the often hidden injustices, caused by ethnic animosities that women and children face.

The legislator said many families are robbed of their livelihoods and inheritance as their property is destroyed, livestock stolen, and many internally displaced.

Ms Adan held that deaths through conflict and disease contributed to more than 10 per cent rise in the number of widows between 2018 and 2021, especially in the war-torn areas in the county.

Tribal wars have seen, on average, four in ten families living in extreme poverty after they were stripped of their livelihood and their husbands, the sole breadwinners, killed.

She said Northern Kenya risks becoming the region with the largest number of widows and orphans.

Additionally, a significant number of girls are widowed in childhood - a replication of the predominance of child marriage in the region and the custom of marrying off young girls to older men.

Ethnic clashes

Marsabit County has witnessed a spate of ethnic clashes that stem from competition for grazing land, water access points, and ethnic territorial expansion. The recent trends of violence have, however, been blamed on political instigations as the 2022 General Election nears.

These disquiets arise after peace talks conducted by the regional and local security teams, National Integration and Cohesion Commission (NCIC), local leaders and other peace crusaders in the county, failed to bear fruit.

NCIC chairperson Rev Samuel Kobia, reportedly said he would meet local leaders in Marsabit to bring together the feuding communities.

A classic example of bizarre ethnic clashes, triggered by elections, was witnessed between September and December 2013, when more than 100 people were killed, while 38,000 others were displaced in the bloody conflicts that saw more than nine attacks.

Yet the most memorable one, is the horrid and chilling killings of what is now termed as the Turbi Massacre of July 12, 2005; where 90 people were killed, property destroyed and more than 7,500 people displaced. It continues to be the cause of bitter acrimony and mistrust between the two feuding communities.