Without transformation and without public apologies, people cannot move on from what happened.
— Samuel Kosgei, Human Rights Organisation, Justice and Peace
We are a church of the living, not of the dead
— Paul Karanja, pastor
During the ethnic violence in Kenya in 2008, the church in Kiambaa became a symbol of the horror that shook the country. Kikuyu who had sought refuge there were killed on New Year’s Day when Kalenjin youths set the building alight. In 2009, the victims were officially reburied. But the graves are no longer visible. “History is being erased.”
The noise came from all sides on that first day of January 2008 in the village of Kiambaa, in Uasin Gishu County in western Kenya. Hundreds of young Kalenjin, the ethnic group that has traditionally formed the majority in the region, advanced in a long line across the grasslands and the still-bare cornfields. Naomi, a farmer and day labourer, and herself a member of the Kikuyu, a minority in this region, was cooking in her simple house when she heard their war cries. “Ho-hee-hooo, ho-hee-hooo,” she imitates in a low, hollow voice. She saw smoke in the distance, making it clear that the houses further away had been set alight.
For days, ethnic violence had engulfed the region, targeting the Kikuyu community. Naomi did not hesitate; she ran to the small Pentecostal church a few hundred metres away, belonging to the Kenya Assemblies of God. Her grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter, still a baby, were already there, along with about a hundred other Kikuyu. Here, they believed, they would be safe.
Inside, the church was packed. Outside, Kalenjin men armed with bows and arrows, clubs, and machetes had encircled the building. Without warning, flames erupted: mattresses and blankets piled against the wooden door had been doused in petrol and set alight. The Kikuyu tried to flee, but the Kalenjin blocked their escape. All except one, a boy named Emanuel. “Stop, stop, let them through,” he shouted. Naomi seized the moment and ran outside with the baby in her arms, just before the mud walls gave way. Her grandmother and at least sixteen others died in the fire or later from their burns. Dozens more required hospital treatment.
Election fraud
The violence around Kiambaa formed part of the post-election unrest that erupted after the 27 December 2007 polls. Contrary to all opinion surveys and the trajectory of the initial results, the incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, was declared the winner, holding a narrow lead over his rival, Raila Odinga, who in Uasin Gishu was backed by Kalenjin politician William Ruto. An hour later, Kibaki was hastily sworn in, without the dignitaries who would ordinarily attend such a ceremony.
The general perception was that electoral fraud had occurred. The anger of many Kenyans was directed at the Kikuyu, the ethnic group to which President Kibaki belonged. In Uasin Gishu, they constitute a minority. Following independence in 1963, many Kikuyu purchased land that became available after the departure of British planters, leading many Kalenjin to view them as intruders.
The violence that erupted in late 2007 lasted for two months, including successive waves of retaliatory attacks. At least 1,100 people were killed across Kenya, and more than 660,000 were displaced. It came to an end only after international mediation led the political rivals to agree to govern jointly: Kibaki remained President, Odinga assumed the office of Prime Minister, and Ruto was appointed Minister of Agriculture.
It is the end of 2016 when Naomi, then in her late forties, and her sister Tabethe, in her early thirties, talk about those days on a wide two-seater sofa in their house built of wood and clay, with a floor of compacted earth. Above the sofa hangs a framed photograph of a serious-looking elderly woman. Their grandmother.
Naomi and Tabethe prefer to keep their surnames unmentioned because of the Kalenjin who live around them. Since they suddenly turned against the Kikuyu in their midst, Naomi no longer trusts any Kalenjin. “You do not know what is in their hearts,” she says. “Once a snake bites you, you always remain afraid.”
Tabethe knows at least three “attackers” whom she saw standing near the church at the time, she says. She recently helped one of them with the corn harvest for three days. The farmer knows that she knows what role he played then, but they do not talk about it. She does not feel good about it, but she has to survive. “I have no choice.”
Turning point
‘Kiambaa’ became a turning point in how the world viewed the violence. Images of a wheelchair on top of the charred remains of the church, whose owner had also been burned, were seen around the world. It made clear that this was more than anger over election results.
As a step toward reconciliation, fourteen identified victims of the church fire were buried in an official ceremony in May 2009, along with at least twenty-two unidentified bodies whose deaths were attributed to the fire. President Kibaki led the official memorial service. However, this did not bring much reconciliation, as almost all the invited Kalenjin leaders from the area stayed away.
On that December day in 2016, Naomi and Tabethe are quietly willing to show us the graves. Next to a small makeshift church made of corrugated iron sheets are weathered wooden crosses painted with black letters, with January 1, 2008, as the date of death. Sometimes there is a name on them, sometimes only “unknown.”
Naomi has to search for a while to find her grandmother’s cross. It has fallen and is hidden deep in the tall grass in a corner of the field. The plaque with her grandmother’s name, date of birth and date of death is split in two.
Churches under construction
In June 2022, on a return visit to Kiambaa, the lives of Naomi and Tabethe had improved. They now live in brick houses, with a television in the living room, and their grandmother’s photograph still hangs on Naomi’s wall.
The church grounds at Kiambaa now look completely different. Two imposing stone churches are under construction, covering dozens of square metres. One is built from aerated concrete blocks, the other from natural stone, with recesses for arched windows, as in Gothic churches. Nothing remains of the crosses or graves.
It is a few months before the national elections. The main presidential candidates are William Ruto, Vice President since 2013, and Raila Odinga, leader of the Azimio la Umoja coalition, who turned from ally to rival in 2007. It emerges that Ruto’s UDA party is financing one church through his local confidant, Oscar Sudi, a member of parliament and businessman. The so-called “Gothic” church is sponsored by Odinga’s coalition.
It is a few months before the national elections. Survivors such as Tabethe and her sister were not consulted about the new churches, Tabethe says. “Ruto is building the churches because he wants to make a good impression, hoping to be re-elected. And he wants us to forget the violence,” she says from her living room, furnished with three three-seater sofas.
When her grandmother was still alive, life was easier, she says wistfully. Her brothers listened to the older woman, even when they were drunk. “I hope there will be a beautiful grave for her someday.” What should it look like? “There should be a monument with a large cross and a text especially for Grandma.” She thinks for a moment, then says what should be written on it: “I wish you a safe journey. Our Lord Jesus Christ will receive you. You didn’t want to go yet, but you were forced to.”
Church of the living
That Sunday, a service is held in the makeshift church in Kiambaa for a group of children and no more than 25 adults. “We are a church of the living, not of the dead,” Pastor Paul Karanja says after his sermon about the graves. “We do not want to remind people of the violence.” When asked whether the churches under construction are too large for the small community, he says that one must look ahead. The region, which currently consists of cornfields and homes without electricity, “will one day develop into a metropolis.”
In the office of the Catholic human rights organisation Justice and Peace in nearby Eldoret, Samuel Kosgei expresses his indignation about the churches in Kiambaa. Their construction is “a way of erasing history.” Politicians want to eliminate the festering wound, which reminds them that they were unable to protect the people in their own district.”
Kosgei and the then bishop of Eldoret were among the first responders to arrive at the smouldering remains of the church in Kiambaa, a few hours after the fire. “We found thirteen bodies in the church, one just outside, and three more people in the hospital who had succumbed to their burns.”
“The Catholic Church should have been more alert,” he adds pensively. “We should have bought the plot shortly after the fire, when everything was still fresh and chaotic. Then we could have taken proper care of it until we were ready to erect a monument. Now it’s too late. The land belongs to the Kenya Assemblies of God, and they can do with it as they please.”
But he is disappointed, because the wounds in the community remain fresh. “Without transformation and public apologies, people cannot let go of what happened — and history may repeat itself.”
Image of shame
In November 2024, the largest church in Kiambaa appears to be complete. Its exterior walls, partly painted bright white, gleam in the sun, while inside, the floor is covered with shiny beige tiles. The “Gothic” church now has a roof but remains as unfinished as it was two years earlier. Grass grows where the graves once stood. There is still no reminder of the Kikuyu people who perished in the flames.
Inside, Paul Karanja leads the service wearing a purple suit and a brown-and-gold striped tie. His wish to see the congregation grow has not come true: only seven of the thirty blue plastic chairs around the stage, in a hall that can accommodate up to two hundred people, are occupied.
During a conversation in his office afterwards Karanja is surprisingly open about the construction of the churches. He had often prayed to God to change “the image of shame, of sin” surrounding the church in Kiambaa. The offer to finance a new church by Oscar Sudi — who, according to Karanja, wanted to clear the name of the Kalenjin — came at just the right time. When members of the Azimio coalition made the same offer, he decided that a second church would serve as a Sunday school for children and teenagers. Thus began the construction of the “Gothic” church.
After William Ruto won the elections, Sudi kept his word and had the ‘main church’ completed. Representatives of the Azimio coalition, which had lost the elections, told him he could forget about completion. “The mother church, the Kenyan Assemblies of God, then paid for the roof itself to protect the floor and walls from the rain.”
And the graves? Karanja still does not want to place a plaque in memory of the tragedy. “It would not be wise. Then people would keep thinking about the events of that time. My congregation is mixed. There are Kikuyu and Kalenjin. Some would be hurt.”
Monument
Naomi, now 53, has never been to the new church and has no intention of going. She has her own Pentecostal church, Harvest Connection, which she sometimes attends on Sundays. “They should have used the money for that second church to renovate the graves,” she says from her house down the road.
She still hopes that a monument will be erected for the victims of Kiambaa. A memorial service there might attract her former neighbours, whom she would like to see again. “So many people fled and never returned.”
Tabethe holds a slightly different view from her sister. She says she has considered joining Karanja’s church so that she could be close to her grandmother every week. “When I think back to that time, I feel love. I am still happy that I am alive.”
It turns out that Tabethe has her own small monument in her home. She goes to her bedroom and points to a rough wooden table. When she returned home in 2008, after a long stay in a tent camp for displaced persons, she found that it had burned to the ground, along with everything inside. Only a table and a chair had survived the flames. “I burned the chair; I needed firewood. But I have always kept the table as a memento.
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This is an edited preview of Als een slang je bijt, blijf je altijd bang – Geweld en straffeloosheid in Kenia (When a snake bites you, you always remain afraid – Violence and Impunity in Kenya). Order your copy here.
The book launch took place on 4 December in Amsterdam. Watch here.
It is largely in Dutch, but the Kenyan journalist and writer Oyunga Pala makes important comments in English at 34:00.
This article in Dutch in newspaper NRC.
