Displaced Kenyans not ready to return home

ELDORET, Kenya, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- The deadline for Kenyans displaced by 2007 post-election violence to leave emergency camps is Friday but some still balk at returning home, officials say.

The camp at the agricultural showground in the town of Eldoret, with less than 2,000 remaining, is the only official displaced persons camp reported open.

For those who remain. it's mostly a matter of promised land and money and glaring ethnic differences that forced them to flee in the first place.

President Mwai Kibaki ordered the closure of the camps, which at the peak of the violence were home to around 500,000 people. Authorities say there have been no forced evictions and efforts are under way to find land for those displaced.

One such displaced person, Stanley Wanyoike, who was forced to flee with his wife and five children Dec. 30, 2007, the night Kibaki was declared the winner of a controversial election, told the BBC he would leave only if the president keeps his promise to give them land.

"We are ready to leave if the promise made by the head of state is fulfilled," he said,

Each family has been offered 35,000 Kenyan shillings (about $470) for leaving. But, to receive the money they have to dismantle their "tent," often a leaky structure made of plastic sheeting and old sacks.