The 2007-2008 post-election violence was catastrophic in Uasin Gishu County, producing some of the highest death tolls and displacement rates of any region in Kenya during the crisis. The violence erupted in the days following the disputed December 2007 presidential election and persisted through early 2008, claiming an estimated 500-1,000 lives in Uasin Gishu (though reliable figures are difficult to establish given the chaos and inadequate documentation of deaths). Tens of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and livelihoods, and the violence exposed and intensified ethnic tensions that have remained latent or manifest ever since.
The structural conditions underlying Uasin Gishu's violence were rooted in decades of land dispossession and demographic change. During the colonial period and the post-independence land redistribution of the 1960s and 1970s, Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya, and other settler communities were allocated substantial land holdings in the fertile Rift Valley, displacing or marginalizing Kalenjin indigenous populations. Kalenjin resent toward these settler populations accumulated as they perceived their ancestral lands being taken and their economic and political opportunities constrained. By the 2000s, land in Uasin Gishu was highly fragmented, with Kikuyu farmers occupying much of the arable land and accumulating wealth through wheat farming and commercial agriculture, while many Kalenjin communities remained relatively poor despite remaining in their ancestral homeland.
The disputed presidential election in December 2007 provided a trigger for the latent ethnic and land-based tensions. President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, was declared the election winner by the Electoral Commission amid widespread allegations of fraud. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, a Luo, contested the results and called for mass protests. The election result was perceived by Kalenjin communities, including in Uasin Gishu, as reflecting the broader pattern of Kikuyu political dominance and economic advantage. Ethnic-based political mobilization rapidly escalated into communal violence, with Kalenjin youth organized into militias attacking Kikuyu and other settler communities while the latter formed their own defense groups.
Eldoret City became a focal point of violence in the county. Organized youth gangs attacked Kikuyu neighborhoods, burning homes and shops and killing residents. The violence was not entirely spontaneous; evidence suggests that political elites incited violence for partisan advantage, with local politicians, businessmen, and youth leaders organizing attackers. Weapons, including machetes and firearms, were distributed to attacking groups. The attacks on Kikuyu residential areas created waves of refugees fleeing the city and the surrounding county. Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps were established to provide shelter for displaced families, with thousands living in tents and temporary structures.
One of the defining atrocities of the nationwide post-election violence occurred in Uasin Gishu with the Kiambaa church burning on January 1, 2008. Approximately 35 people, mostly Kikuyu civilians, died when a church building was burned. The burning of a place of worship with unarmed civilians, including women and children, marked a crossing of psychological and moral boundaries that galvanized international response and domestic political action to end the violence. The Kiambaa incident received international media coverage and became iconic in global representations of the post-election violence.
The violence in Uasin Gishu reflected broader patterns of post-election violence nationwide, including ethnically targeted attacks, destruction of property, and displacement. However, the intensity of violence in Uasin Gishu was particularly severe, with death tolls and displacement rates higher than in most other regions. This severity has been attributed to the particular salience of land issues in Uasin Gishu, the organization of attacking militias, the involvement of political actors in inciting violence, and possibly the geographic concentration of settler communities (Kikuyu populations were concentrated in certain neighborhoods and farms, making them vulnerable to coordinated attacks).
The security response to the violence was inadequate and at times complicit. Police and military forces were slow to respond to attacks, and in some cases were alleged to have participated in or enabled violence. There are documented cases of security forces failing to prevent massacres despite advance warning. Questions persist about whether this inadequate response reflected poor coordination and planning, deliberate inaction reflecting ethnic alignments of security personnel, or a broader collapse of state authority during the crisis.
Recovery from the 2007-2008 violence has been uneven and incomplete. Many displaced persons returned to their homes months or years after the violence, though some never returned. Homes and businesses destroyed were rebuilt in many cases, though some sites remain abandoned. Communities remained fractured, with survivor trauma and perpetrator impunity hindering reconciliation. Land disputes that precipitated violence were not fundamentally resolved, leaving underlying tensions intact. Political relationships between Kalenjin and Kikuyu communities in Uasin Gishu have normalized superficially but remain marked by underlying suspicion and potential volatility during subsequent electoral periods.
The violence intensified political consciousness of ethnic identity in Uasin Gishu and contributed to the subsequent strengthening of ethnic-based political mobilization. William Ruto, a Kalenjin politician from Uasin Gishu, gained political prominence partly through his identification with Kalenjin interests and his rise to the presidency in 2022 was partly rooted in post-election violence era political dynamics. International justice mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court's investigations, documented violence in Uasin Gishu and charged several actors with crimes against humanity, though accountability has been incomplete.
See Also
Post-Election Violence Memory Kiambaa Church Burning 2008 Eldoret City William Ruto and Uasin Gishu Uasin Gishu Ethnic Composition Uasin Gishu Land History