Darfur - Day 1

The Road To Darfur (and back again)
a travel journey with documentary filmmaker Chip Duncan


Please note that any opinions expressed in this blog are those of Chip Duncan and do not represent any other organizations or individuals. Darfur is a place of constant change and any statistical references are approximate and may change rapidly. If you are reading this after January, 2008, please verify any information with up-to-date and verifiable resources.


Day 1 – January 1st, 2008 – It’s an unusual time to arrive in Nairobi, Kenya. I plopped my bags down just before midnight and brought in 2008 alone in the lobby bar of the Fairview Hotel. It’s light on guests because Nairobi is in day 3 of rioting following the election battle between incumbent President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. Kibaki has declared victory and numerous election officials (as well as Odinga) are crying “fraud.”

When I wake up on Jan. 1, I ring my friend Salim Amin, son of famed African photojournalist Mohammed Amin and owner of the great Nairobi-based television production company, Camerapix (camerapix.com). Salim fills me in on what’s happening around the city and the countryside. Locally, the two major slums in Nairobi are awash in rioting as sympathizers of Odinga fight against police and call for new elections.

Salim and a few fellow journalists (Kenyan and international) pick me up and I ride along to a press conference by government spokesman Alfred Mutua. Like all government spokesmen, he assures everyone that the situation is fine and calls the protestors “hooligans” and not political activists. They are, he says, just taking advantage of the situation to loot and steal. He artfully deflects notions of tribal and ethnic tension between the Luo and the Kikuyu. (*It should be noted that Kikuyu represent approximately 22% of Kenya’s roughly 37 million people and Luo represent approximately 13%. Kikuyu leaders have held power here since independence from the British in 1963.)

At the press conference, the national police chief reports approximately 45 dead and roughly 3000 displaced by rioting. Hardest hit in Nairobi is a slum called Kibera – a place I had a chance to visit and photograph in 2005 and 2007.

At lunch with Salim and his colleagues, a call comes in that a church in Eldoret (185 miles from Nairobi) has been set afire with numerous children killed in the blaze. The first report suggests the church was ignited by Luo and that the victims are Kikuyu. Within minutes, my lunch pals are off again and I tune in to BBC News for live reports from the area. It appears that spokesman Mutua has misjudged the situation. Rioting is now happening in several parts of Kenya including Mombasa and Kisumu.

With one off day before my flight to Khartoum, I write up an article for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel profiling Kibera slum and my experience there (jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=703668). If nothing else, I hope to shed some light on the economic disparity in Kenya and give a face and voice to the people of Kibera. The government of the past five years is considerably more progressive than the two previous administrations and the economy here is doing well. Tourism is booming and Kenya’s future looks bright. That said, millions of Kenyans still live in desperate poverty.

By the end of January 1st, especially in light of the church burning, most Kenyans are inside their homes watching news reports. The government has banned “live” broadcasts from Kenyan broadcasters so much of what’s being reported is coming from BBC and CNN. The day ends with increased anxiety around the church killings. It is eerily reminiscent of the beginnings of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

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Thanks for following along on The Road To Darfur. Please visit tomorrow for Day 2. If you have questions or thoughts, please feel free to email me at this blog site. You can also visit the websites for Relief International (RI.org) or DuncanEntertainment.com for more information. Additional photos of Kibera can be accessed from the home page of DuncanEntertainment.com.


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