Ogiek people win land case against Kenyan government

The African Court on Human and People’s rights based in Tanzania has made a landmark ruling allowing an indigenous Kenyan group known as the Ogiek to keep their ancestral land.

The court, sitting in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha, said that the Kenyan government should never have tried to evict members of the Ogiek community from the Mau Forest because it is their ancestral land.

The court dismissed the government allegations that they had to evict them them to conserve the forest, saying the Kenyan authorities had failed to demonstrate that the Ogiek harmed the forest.

The court further said the government had violated a series of rights of the Ogiek community, including the right to culture and right to property.

Source – BBC