All I want is justice, not revenge

• Nothing can compensate Ruth Njeri for the suffering she underwent during the post-election violence, but she hopes that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s visit to Kenya last week will ensure that those behind the bloodshed are punished.

“My husband cried out, telling me to look after our son — if we survived. I felt helpless as I watched them beat him ruthlessly,” recalls Njeri, tears welling up in her eyes. One of the men came and brandished a panga in her face before using it to slash her husband’s neck. “They laughed. One of them picked my son from the floor, held him by his feet and then dropped him head first.”

But they weren’t done yet. Next, the men dragged Ruth into the next room, kicking and slapping her. “One cut me slowly and deliberating above my knee while another, who was smoking, burnt my thighs with a cigarette butt several times,” she says, lifting her skirt to reveal the scars.

Njeri was barely conscious when they began raping her in turns. But she remembers that each one would finish with her then help himself to some of the food she had cooked. Her last memory of that night is of the men pouring hot water on her naked body before leaving her for dead.

Nearly three days later, Njeri regained consciousness in hospital but had no idea how she got there. After recovering a little, she joined the hundreds of displaced people at the local district officer’s compound, where she was reunited with her son, who had miraculously survived. Over the next few days, they were transported in lorries to the Nakuru Showground, where they would receive food and shelter.

“At the showground I met several women who had also lost everything,” she says. “But that didn’t make my loss any easier to bear. However, we all agreed that our politicians had turned the elections into a battle for power and used tribal tensions to disturb the peace in the country and the safety of the very people they claimed to speak for. It was the ultimate betrayal.”

Unknown to Njeri, the attack would continue to haunt her in other ways. 

A couple of months after the incident, she reported to the health clinic within the camp that she has missed her period. She was tested, but the medical staff were evasive about the results although they continued counselling her.  After six months, Njeri wanted to terminate the pregnancy but was not allowed to.

“I wondered how I could have a child whose father I did not even know, and who would be a constant reminder of my humiliation,” she offers. “I tried to convince the authorities to let me have an abortion but they said it was too late. They told me not to hate the child because it was part of me, and that it was innocent.”

Due to the damage to her body after the gang-rape, Njeri couldn’t give birth normally. Apart from special counselling, she also received clothing, food and medical aid before the baby was delivered through a Caesarian section. “I couldn’t bring myself to look at the baby or hold her,” she recalls.

“Several of my companions and the nurses tried to convince me but I was angry, bitter and helpless. I wondered why this had to happen to me. I knew many other women who had been raped during the violence, but why was I so ill-fated as to fall pregnant with a rapist’s child?”

 “It is God’s will, breastfeed your child and your love for her will flow,” Njeri repeats the words of an old woman at the hospital who understood what she was going through. “On the third day I breastfed the baby, Miracle Wanjiru, for the first time, and the bond of love broke the regret of how she had been conceived.” Miracle is now an active 14-month-old baby.

Although the government is trying to resettle the displaced people, thousands like Njeri are still languishing in camps. Food and water are scarce, medical help is inadequate and diseases like cholera, typhoid, pneumonia and malnutrition continue to take their toll. Worst affected are young children and the elderly. Njeri and her children have been admitted to public wards at the local hospital several times for various infections.

“We know that some people have already been resettled on the plots promised by the government, but we wish they would speed things up and provide the compensation money quickly.”

Njeri has made no attempt to go back to Kericho because she feels there is nothing left to go back to. She works as a casual labourer on farms near the camp to pay for food for her family. Sometimes they sleep hungry because there is no food or no fuel to cook with. Their tent is leaking and when it rains, everything gets soaked. The nights are cold and several times her few belongings have been stolen by other desperate people.

Njeri finds herself swinging between depression and the will to rebuild her life.  “At times I look at our condition and wonder whether it will ever end, or what kind of punishment this is,” she cries. “Then I look at others who are worse off… for women who were raped and contracted Aids, it is a sure death sentence. Then I count my blessings and console myself that although I lost my husband and my property, I still have the son of the man I loved, and I consider Wanjiru a blessing and another reason for me to live.”