Matatus, the shared, tightly-packed minibuses popular throughout the country, are feared to be a weak link in efforts to contain coronavirus, but conductors are working to make journeys as hygienic as possible
All photographs by Joost Bastmeijer
Category Archives: Kenya
‘We fear, but have to work’: isolation not an option for the poor of Nairobi
As coronavirus arrives in Kenya, retreat behind closed doors is only an alternative for those who can afford it
All photographs by Duncan Moore
Benson Kinyale is a security guard who works the door at a luxury apartment complex in the Parklands neighbourhood of Nairobi. While residents of the building have started to hoard supplies and stay at home because of Covid-19, he continues to make the 80km commute by bus from his home outside the city, six days a week.
He knows standing outside and opening doors all day is now a high-risk activity, as is travelling on a crowded matatu minibus almost every day. But he has little choice.
Continue reading...Fish ponds and water harvesting: climate-smart farming comes to Kenya
Unable to rely on the catch from Lake Victoria, locals are finding success with new and sustainable agriculture methods
It might not be clear why a fish pond project should take root in a region surrounding the great Lake Victoria. After all, as the second largest freshwater lake in the world, it should be able to support the fish and the people that depend on its resources.
But the fact that fish farming is fast expanding here highlights a worrying trend – that the fish population in Lake Victoria has been in steady decline and the quality of what is being caught has been going down too, jeopardising the livelihoods of millions.
Continue reading...‘Community infections could happen any time’: Kenya prepares for Covid-19
One of the last places to be hit by coronavirus, experts in Kenya are worried it doesn’t have the resources to cope
Callers to BK radio, a station broadcasting to the remote region around Mount Elgon in western Kenya, were worried on Wednesday evening.
“Will the government help us if we stay indoors and we need food?” one asked. “What if we have small houses, where we can’t stay too far apart?” asked another.
Continue reading...Kenya split over campaign to give women the right to safe abortions
MP Esther Passaris says lives are being put at risk in a country where 40% of pregnancies are unplanned
The pills arrived with no instructions. Delivered on a Sunday to Joy’s home in Kayole, an informal settlement in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, by someone she didn’t know.
She had ordered them because she was pregnant, and didn’t want to be. At 19, she said, she couldn’t support a baby, and the father had stopped answering his phone after she told him. Desperate, she had asked an older friend, who said she knew someone who could help.
Continue reading...African nations impose stricter measures as coronavirus spreads
Governments warn disease will cause huge challenges for continent’s health services
Countries across Africa have imposed wide-ranging and stringent new measures as the coronavirus begins to spread more rapidly across the continent.
Though the continent is still far behind Europe and Asia in the total numbers of Covid-19 cases, the disease has now reached about half of its countries. Algeria has 48 confirmed cases, Egypt 110, while South Africa has 62, according to the World Health Organization and national governments on Monday. Other countries have fewer cases, mostly in single figures.
Continue reading...‘Do not let this fire burn’: WHO warns Europe over coronavirus
Europe now centre of pandemic, says WHO, as Spain prepares for state of emergency
The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.
Continue reading...Kenya’s rare white female giraffe ‘killed by poachers’
Death of giraffe and her calf leave just one male specimen alive
Kenya’s only female white giraffe and her calf have been killed by poachers, conservationists have said, in a major blow to conservation of the rare animals found nowhere else in the world.
The bodies of the two giraffes were found “in a skeletal state after being killed by armed poachers” in Garissa in eastern Kenya, the Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy said in a statement.
Continue reading...Schools close in north-east Kenya after al-Shabaab targets teachers
Authorities face criticism for withdrawing teaching staff from an already marginalised region where education is badly needed
A series of targeted killings of schoolteachers by a militia group in Kenya has seen an exodus of staff and the closure of hundreds of schools across the north-east of the country.
Thousands of teachers have left their posts in the past two months following several suspected al-Shabaab attacks in the region.
Continue reading...Scientists turn to tech to prevent second wave of locusts in east Africa
Researchers use supercomputer to predict potential breeding areas as food security fears grow
Scientists monitoring the movements of the worst locust outbreak in Kenya in 70 years are hopeful that a new tracking programme they will be able to prevent a second surge of the crop-ravaging insects.
The UN has described the locust outbreak in the Horn of Africa, and the widespread breeding of the insects in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia that has followed, as “extremely alarming”.
Continue reading...‘I can see!’: the mobile team saving sight in the Kenyan bush – in pictures
Trachoma is the most common infectious cause of blindness in the world. Kenya aims to eliminate the disease in four years, helped by teams who traverse desert and bushland to reach scattered communities
Continue reading...Huge locust swarms raise fears of food shortages in South Sudan
UN warns 25 million people could be affected as wartorn country is beset by fresh wave of insects
Swarms of desert locusts, which have been ravaging crops and grazing land across east Africa, have now crossed the border into South Sudan, a country already struggling from widespread hunger and years of civil war.
The UN has warned that an imminent second hatch of the insects could threaten the food security of 25 million people across the region.
Continue reading...When Lambs Become Lions review – on the trail of Kenya’s elephant killers
This coolly even-handed documentary dips into the lives of an ivory poacher and a stressed-out wildlife ranger trying to obstruct the illegal trade
Jon Kasbe’s documentary When Lambs Become Lions has been much praised on the festival circuit, and it is cleverly and effectively made, seeking to grip you the way a thriller would. Yet I’m not sure that I was completely on board with this film, which appears to have smoothly carpentered its narrative in the edit. Is it almost too good to be true?
The film gives us a coolly even-handed study of some ivory hunters in Kenya – and also the rangers, the hunters of the hunters, who have to roam through the landscape, in their camouflage gear and assault rifles, on the lookout for those who are illegally killing elephants for their tusks.
Continue reading...A humanitarian crisis looms in Africa unless we act fast to stop the desert locust
The destructive migratory pest threatens catastrophe as it swarms through countries already plagued by food insecurity
A colleague at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells a terrifying story about the desert locust.
In 2005 she visited farmers in Niger as they prepared to harvest their crops. Just hours later, a swarm of locusts swept through the area and destroyed everything. One month later, truckloads of families were forced to leave their homes because they had nothing to eat.
Continue reading...Food fears grow as swarms of locusts reach Uganda and Tanzania
Outbreak in east Africa has already devastated crops across a swath of Kenya and Somalia
Massive swarms of locusts sweeping across much of east Africa have reached Uganda and Tanzania, the United Nations has said, threatening millions more people with hunger in an already fragile region.
Tanzania has detected swarms in its northern border areas close to Mount Kilimanjaro and hired three planes to spray pesticide, a tactic seen as the most effective means of countering the spread of the insects.
Continue reading...Daniel Arap Moi, former president of Kenya, dies aged 95
Leader ruled for decades and legalised one-party rule during a tenure marked by poverty and corruption
Former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi, an autocratic leader who ruled for more than 20 years, has died, the office of the president said on Tuesday. He was 95.
There was no immediate information on the cause of Moi’s death but he had been in and out of hospital with breathing problems in recent months.
Continue reading...At least 14 children killed in crush at Kenya primary school
Police investigate causes of tragedy in Kakamega amid reports that pupils fell from third floor as they ran downstairs at home time
At least 14 children have died and dozens of others have been injured in a crush at a primary school in Kenya, officials said.
The police have launched an inquiry into what caused the crowd of students to panic as they were leaving the school in the western town of Kakamega to go home at around 5pm local time on Monday.
Continue reading...Kenya suffers worst locust infestation in 70 years as millions of insects swarm farmland
UN urges immediate action as east African nations already experiencing devastating hunger see large areas of crops destroyed
The worst outbreak of desert locusts in Kenya in 70 years has seen hundreds of millions of the insects swarm into the east African nation from Somalia and Ethiopia. Those two countries have not had an infestation like this in a quarter century, destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region with devastating hunger.
“Even cows are wondering what is happening,” said Ndunda Makanga, who spent hours Friday trying to chase the locusts from his farm. “Corn, sorghum, cowpeas, they have eaten everything.”
Continue reading...Billions of locusts swarm through Kenya – in pictures
Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades
Continue reading...‘Food prices shot up’: floods spark a scramble for survival in east Africa
From Somalia to South Sudan, torrential rains have devastated crops and made roads impassable, sending the cost of food soaring
Before the floods hit her village, crumpling buildings, ripping out pathways and submerging swathes of land, Nurto Mohamed Hassan could buy a kilogram of rice for the equivalent of about 70p.
Now the cost is more than £1. This may not seem a lot in isolation but, for people with little money and families to feed, it is a significant rise.
Continue reading...