Nairobi police use water cannon on a crowd during post-election unrest in 2017. Image: Jan Husar/Zuma Press/PA ImagesKenya is increasingly under pressure on three fronts. To begin with, the country has been plagued by repeated cycles of election-related violence. Even though last year’s elections were settled in the courts rather than in the streets, they highlighted deep ethnic divisions most keenly felt in poor urban settlements. Secondly, numerous non-state armed groups have taken over providing security in areas where the state is practically absent. These groups often combine the characteristics of criminal gangs, political militias and vigilantes. Their members, mostly young men from poor neighbourhoods, provide protection from rival armed groups and crime control for their community. Finally, drug-trafficking organisations are gaining ground along the Kenyan coast, which is a major transit hub for narcotics. Heroin has been consumed by wealthy inhabitants and tourists in Mombasa for over 30 years. But the more recent expansion of the drug trade has led to an escalation of violence between rival traffickers, the police, and vigilantes hired by drug lords.
Nairobi’s violent past
The 1990s was a bad decade for Nairobi when the city gained notoriety as one of the most violent cities in Africa, earning itself the nickname Nairoberry. Poverty and inequality was on the rise and the criminal justice system started to fall apart. In addition, the circulation of small arms became more widespread. This led to a wave of criminal violence that spread across the country. Even though Kenyans from all walks of life became victims, poor slum-dwellers suffered the most.
On top of criminal violence, Kenya has also been plagued by episodes of election violence. In the worst in 2007 and 2008, police employed indiscriminate violence against poor people in cities in an effort to contain violence to informal settlements. The rise in violence had a threefold effect: criminal violence intensified the separation between well-off and poor neighbourhoods. It also contributed to the segregation of slums into distinct ethnic villages, exacerbating ethnic clashes and reinforcing an ethnic dimension to Kenyan society that goes back to colonial times. In these impoverished slums, soaring crime rates triggered the emergence of spontaneous mob justice and more organised vigilante groups.
