It’s taken 80 years for this Kenyan community to be recognized as citizens
Published: 15/Fév/2017
Source: Quartz Africa
By Joshua Masinde
Thomas Nguli has seen the worst of times as an ‘outsider’ in Kenya, where he was born 60 years ago. He is one of the thousands of the Makonde community that originated from Mozambique about 80 years ago but were never recognized as citizens even after several generations were born and raised in Kenya.
Until this year, they had never experienced peace of mind from the time their forefathers were brought to Kenya from the 1930s to work on sisal and sugar plantations at the country’s coast.
Kenyan-born Makonde have always been labeled as ‘outsiders’ despite not really knowing any other country than Kenya. Local officials occasionally threaten them with repatriation whenever the community kicked up a fuss to demand national identification cards (IDs). The national ID is an important document in Kenya as proof of citizenship particularly in dealings with the government and even the private sector.
Read further on Quartz Africa website.