Families residing in Pangani Estate in Nairobi were left homeless after their homes were bulldozed at around 11:30 pm on Monday night.
The demolition exercise was carried out by Nairobi City County bulldozers. It went on uninterrupted for a good part of the night and seems to have caught many by surprise.
Pius Muya, a resident of the estate faulted the county for not issuing an alert them before bringing the houses down.
"It was nothing I ever expected, At least, they would have issued a reminder. They just came at night and started their operations. My daughter and I have nowhere to sleep now and some of my belongings were damaged," he recalled.
Another resident stated that "The City Hall guys are here and they are demolishing the houses while we are still in with our children. It is scary as they are breaking windows, doors and everything."
The estate is part of the seven estates including Jeevanjee, New Ngara, Old Ngara, Sina Road, Uhuru Estate and Ngong Road phase I and Ngong Road phase II which are on set to be redeveloped.The county government has been involved in a dispute with the residents of Pangani since last year over the planned evictions. This delayed the schedule of the upgrade which had been set to start in August 2018, almost a year down the line.
It only in May this year when each of the 48 tenants got a cheque of Sh600,000 from the county government for re-relocation.
This totalled to Sh28.8 million. It remains to be seen if the project will kick off now that the tenants have been evicted.