50,000 people who live alongside Kenya's railway lines could see their homes destroyed

Kenya An estimated 50,000 people who live alongside Kenya’s railway lines could see their homes destroyed after the government railway gave the squatters 30 days to move, prompting residents on Friday to threaten to resist violently.The government order has received sharp criticism from an international human rights group and from those affected, most of whom are slum dwellers in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. The government order does not include a resettlement plan, and residents facing eviction say they don’t know where they will go.

“People have been living and working on these lands for years and a 30-day notice period is wholly inadequate,” said Justus Nyang’aya, director of Amnesty International in Kenya.The land in question is designated as a railway reserve for about 100 feet (30 meters) on either side of the tracks. Many of the slum dwellers, the city’s poorest residents, settled on the land to avoid paying rent.

The Kenya Railways Corporation said in a notice March 21 that squatters must leave in 30 days or be evicted to make way for a planned expansion of train services.A spokesman, George Tatache, the railway took note of the residents’ concerns but as of Friday had no plans to extend next week’s deadline. The railway does not plan to compensate people for their demolished structures, and violators could be prosecuted, he said.

Some residents in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, where a railway line connecting Kenya and Uganda winds through tens of thousands of iron-roofed shanties, threatened to resist violently if the railway does not relocate them.

Junk-seller Stephen Mutua Mutiso, 50, said he does not believe the corporation is serious about its expansion program because it gave similar a reason for evicting residents 15 years ago, but did not then expand the tracks.”The last time they came I did not resist but this time I will fight them off,” Mutiso said.Amnesty International said in a statement that Kenya will violate international human rights laws if it goes through with the evictions. Nyang’aya said that without proper safeguards the evictions will have a devastating impact on people’s access to water, sanitation, food and schools and could create a humanitarian emergency.

Sam Ouma, the chairman of the Railway Dwellers Federation, said the railway issued a prior eviction notice in 2004, but residents filed a suit against it, forcing the corporation to settle out of court.

Ouma said that he hopes a peaceful resolution will be found, but that if the evictions are forceful, officials will be met with fierce resistance.

Mutiso, the junk trader, said he had to start from scratch in 1995 after the corporation destroyed his home and business along the railway line. Mutiso said he had to take desperate measures and move with his six children and wife into a single-room house measuring 10 feet (3 meters) by 10 feet (3 meters).He said it took him a year to rebuild his business, which allowed him to rent a bigger house. Mutiso said during that eviction, two people he knew who had lost all their property committed suicide.(AP)

Rio de Janeiro The most torrential rains in decades has caused flooding and landslides that killed at least 79 people in the state of Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro The most torrential rains in decades has caused flooding and landslides that killed at least 79 people in the state of Rio de Janeiro, stop the transport and trade in Tuesday’s second city in Brazil. Landslides sweep over the huts on the hillside slums of Rio, the city was an important change of the lake and the sea became brown after 15 hours of heavy rain.

Morning flights in and out of the city of six million people who will be hosting the Olympics in 2006 were canceled or seriously delayed, and many neighborhood cut off from electricity and transportation. Most victims were killed at least 180 landslides caused by rain, the government said. According to a spokesman for Rio fire department, at least 40 people were injured have been taken to the hospital and that they are looking for others who were reported missing.

“The situation is critical. The streets flooded and blocked,” said Mayor Eduardo Paes told Reuters. “We recommend people to stay home.” Paes explained to reporters that at least 26 people were killed in the metropolitan area, and firefighters said that all 79 people had died. The mayor claimed 10,000 homes remained at risk, mostly in slums where about a fifth of the population of Rio live, often in huts which are highly vulnerable to heavy rains. Heavy rains that began Monday night in Rio was the worst recorded in 30 years, according to authorized parties. In less than 24 hours, the clouds have float  28.8 cm of rain in the city.

Meteorology experts say that more than the number that is expected during the month of April. The science of weather experts predict more rain in the coming few days, causing landslides will again. Floods and transport chaos last may renew attention on the city’s poor infrastructure when the city was preparing to carry out the 2014 football World Cup and the Olympics in 2006.(Reuters)