Utange residents protest madrassa demolition

Mombasa,

Saturday November 11, 2023

KNA by Sadik Hassan

Residents of Utange in Kisauni constituency are protesting the demolition of a 49-year-old Madrassatul Ahlaam in a land dispute with a private developer.

The residents say they were caught unawares by the private developer, who didn’t show them any court order authorizing the demolition.

The demolition comes barely a week after the president Dr. William Ruto toured the constituency and said the government budgeted Sh1 billion to pay absentee landowners, with a view to ending perennial squatter problem that is synonymous with the Coast.

“We built the madrassa in 1974 it’s only recently that a person came and demolished it. We want to know why and where the assets went, he didn’t show us any court order,” decried Omar Abdalla

“We are astonished that someone came and just demolished the madrassa, our children will lack a place to learn their religion, especially during this long school holidays,” said another resident Babu Juma

Juma added that the private developer has also invaded the community graveyard. The residents now want the government to intervene and stop further demolitions of their ancestral land, where they have lived for more than 100 years.

“We are being disinherited from our ancestral land by rich people, if someone has a court order he should show us instead of demolishing our properties,” said another resident Hassan Rashid.

Shanzu MCA Allen Katana vowed to petition the Mombasa County Assembly to summon all the private developers, engaged in land rows with squatters.

 He questioned why a private developer without a valid court order was allowed to demolish the property.

The Ward representative put the Bamburi Police Station OCS on notice, threatening to call for his transfer, should it emerge that he was protecting ‘land grabbers’.

“People are dying of depression because their ancestral lands were at the verge of being taken over by the rich,” he lamented.

Courtesy; KNA