Mishi Jume, whose son was beaten by GSU officers while collecting firewood on the disputed farm in Denyenye village, Kwale County. He died days later.
A security company working for a multinational cement manufacturer and a contingent of elite police officers stationed at a vast disputed piece of land have been accused of torture, rape, and other human rights abuses by dozens of locals in Denyenye village, Kwale County.
The villagers claim the 1,500-acre property is their ancestral land, but Bamburi Portland Cement Ltd asserts ownership and is setting up a clinker processing plant in the area.
The community in Denyenye claims they experienced extreme violence for the first time in 1952, when they were forcibly evicted from their ancestral land by the British colonial government. The land was allegedly gifted to a retired military officer who sold it to Bamburi Cement in 1954.
Since then, the multinational, which regards the land as a reserve for its mining operations in Kwale County, has secured the property using General Service Unit (GSU) officers — an armed paramilitary wing of the Kenyan police — and G4S, a private security firm that patrols the land with guard dogs.
Mr Shee Mbimbi, a Denyenye local who works as an artisanal miner, alleges he encountered two G4S guards in August 2023 while walking home from the quarry, picking small sticks along the way for firewood.
Within five minutes, he alleges that two G4S guards confronted him and questioned what he was doing. He claims one guard began beating him with a baton before the other released a dog that bit him on the leg.
“They then escorted me home and warned me not to tell anyone that I was bitten by a ‘Bamburi dog,’” Mr Mbimbi said outside his homestead in Denyenye.
He later reported the assault to the police and visited a local hospital, but he could not afford medical treatment, including rabies jabs. Video footage shot immediately after the attack shows Mr Mbimbi writhing in pain as he explains what happened. He alleges that he was not taken to a police station but was instead warned to tell others not to collect firewood from the land if they wished to avoid having dogs set upon them.
A year later, Mr Mbimbi’s wound has gone septic and looks life-threatening. He still lacks the money to pay for medical treatment and faces a possible amputation of his left leg. The Weekly Review has seen six police reports and spoken to several villagers who allege they have been attacked by the security guards, some with multiple dog bites.
The villagers feel even more helpless in the face of armed GSU officers who arrived in Denyenye in 1997 at the height of the ‘Kaya Bombo’ clashes. The GSU established a base at the contested farm, and an average of 30 officers have remained deployed long after the clashes ended. Villagers say their presence has brought more pain than protection.
Ms Mwakideu (not her real name) alleges she has been raped twice in four years by GSU officers. She claims she conceived a daughter from the first rape in 2011.
“When the GSU confronted us, I was raped, and it is a secret I had vowed to take to my grave. I got pregnant and gave birth to a girl who is now 13 years old. My husband left me after he found out what had happened to me. She [the daughter] is out of school now because I have no money to educate her,” she says.
Four years later, she claims she met a similar fate when she went back to fetch firewood for cooking.
“I felt really bad because we have been fetching firewood in this forest since my childhood. I did not report it to the police because we had been told that you can never report the GSU or take them to court,” she says, adding that many other women have gone through similar experiences but are too ashamed to speak out.
Driven by poverty, Ms Mwakideu still goes to fetch firewood from the forest. She has contemplated being accompanied by her 13-year-old daughter, but the possibility that the child might be harmed has stopped her.
Other residents of Denyenye also allege years of abuse, with several still haunted by more than one violent incident. Ms Mishi Juma alleges that her son did not live long after a beating by officers who caught him in 2004 when he was fetching firewood.
Her third-born son, Chuma Juma, a jobless youth in his mid-20s, was reportedly attacked on his way back with firewood.
“I was told that GSU officers descended on him and beat him up. His brothers carried him home. We took him to the hospital in Kwale, where on the third day he died. Doctors found his ribs broken from the kicks of the officers. I could not do much [to complain], especially after his father died. We have always been told that you cannot accuse a police officer and win a case in court,” Ms Mishi, 60, said.
She explains that her son was buried in an unmarked grave. The police did not follow up on the case. Thirteen years later, Ms Mishi says she was also harassed by GSU officers who patrolled the village, as often happens in the search for suspected “firewood thieves.”
Even more recently, the Kwale Mining Alliance (KMA), a civil society organisation championing the rights of Kwale residents living around mining zones, tried to rescue Mr Juma Sudi Mwamkungoma after he was allegedly beaten by the GSU. He had entered the Bamburi farm on August 30, 2023, to fetch firewood, but three officers reportedly caught him and ordered him to bring the firewood to the GSU camp. There, he told KMA, three officers and their superior beat him up.
Assault
The organisation accompanied Mr Mwamkungoma to the police station, where he reported the assault. Weekly Review has seen a copy of that report and a video interview in which KMA spoke to him on September 9, 2023. He died on 20 September.
We wrote to the Kenyan police and the Independent Police Oversight Authority over these claims, but neither of them had responded despite multiple follow-ups. G4S, the former British private security multinational bought in 2021 by the American private security firm Allied Universal, denied any wrongdoing by its officers. They instead accused some of the alleged victims of “attacking their dogs” on patrol.
Presented with an example of Omar Mbwana, who was attacked by a G4S dog last year while fetching firewood and later detained in their container offices overnight without food or water, the company responded:
“Mr Mbwana threatened our dog handler with a machete when he was found stealing eucalyptus poles. Our dog handler acted in self-defence and within protocol,” the company said.
Bamburi Cement, part of LafargeHolcim (one of the biggest building materials multinationals in the world), said it had not verified any of the claims put forward by the villagers.
“The company has found no evidence of wrongdoing after conducting reviews and inquiries. Bamburi is deeply committed to respecting global standards on human rights, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” the company wrote in response to a long list of questions.
The cement maker, which has offered its Kenyan operations for sale, has received a government permit for a new clinker production facility on the land. A few kilometres from Denyenye, the multinational has been in another tussle with villagers over compensation for sourcing raw materials.
The local community claims that Bamburi has not involved them in the new plan to use the disputed ancestral land, which they call ‘Chikuyumtole.’ There are three stone beacons with the year 1955 carved on them in the area just before the ocean, a move the community claims was illegal since the land adjacent to the beach is considered public.
Those who have tried to farm close to the beach have also been stopped. Elderly locals like 85-year-old Ali Bakari Shambi and 86-year-old Mwanaidi Mwaranguo Mwagarere recall living inside the farm that is now a no-go zone for locals before they were forcefully evicted.
“Before 1952, we lived on our land in peace; we used to farm, gather stones and wood, and we went fishing. I remember my father and mother refusing to relocate, and they were jailed for a week at the Kwale police station,” Mr Shambi says. Ms Mwanaidi recalls that she was pregnant with her second child in 1952 when police vans showed up in the village and community members were forcefully removed.
“Before that, we farmed cassava, maize, and lentils, and nobody disturbed us,” she says. In her family’s case, they demolished their homes voluntarily when the colonial government announced the evictions. She says they lost all their crops and possessions and moved onto adjacent land while still accessing the Bamburi farm to graze cattle, gather firewood, and fish.
For about half a century, Bamburi permitted the villagers access to the ancestral land, though there were intermittent attempts to stop them from farming.
Bamburi’s bitter relations with locals over the years will now be a burden to be borne by Tanzania’s Amsons Group whose Sh23.5 billion bid has been approved by the Capital Markets Authority after Kenya’s Savannah Clinker withdrew its enhanced offer of Sh27.7 billion on Wednesday.
