In the shadow of the Nairobi skyline, the sprawling, informal settlement of Mathare bears the scars of nature’s fury colliding with vulnerable humans.
The March-to-May rainy season of 2024 brought torrential downpours that devastated this community along the Mathare River, claiming lives and property.
On 24 April, floods swept through the Kenyan capital’s second-largest slum. A month later, the humanitarian organisation Save the Children reported more than 7,000 people had been displaced in Mathare alone.
When Dialogue Earth visited in October, residents were still struggling to come to terms with a scale of destruction that had gained global attention.
Doreen Achieng feels lucky to be alive. From her new, one-room house of corrugated sheets, the mother of four recalls how water seeped into her previous home overnight. Accustomed to occasional flooding, she mopped it up. But on that night, the water kept rising – to about three metres. “We were stuck in the water, but the men came to our rescue,” Achieng explains.
Once the children were safe, Achieng realised everything she owned had been swept away. Her old makeshift house, perched precariously on the river bank, was lost. At least 15 of her neighbours had been killed.
Her livelihood was swept away, too: “I was a food vendor, and my customers came from the area that has now been demolished. It’s no longer viable to run my business there, and this has made it difficult to pay my children’s school fees and cover the rent.”
Informal settlements hit hardest
The March-to-May floods led to 294 fatalities in Kenya, according to the 2024 Kenya Red Cross flood operations report. The floods also displaced approximately 55,000 households, killed 11,000 heads of livestock and damaged 65,000 acres of cropland.
Nairobi county was hit the hardest by flooding, the report found. Informal settlements, such as Mathare, Kibera and Mukuru, bore the brunt of the damage.
Edward Okoth was one of the flood victims who took temporary shelter in a displacement camp, set up inside a primary school in Mathare. Victims were also temporarily sheltered in community halls and churches.
“Life was very difficult” he recalls. “The food was not enough for all of us … we were literally fighting for food.”
The floods, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon, demonstrate the vulnerability of African countries – and their poorer communities in particular – to extreme weather events. For example, the cheapest places to rent in Mathare were on the edge of the river bank, where the flood risk is most pronounced.
El Niño is a climate pattern in which the surface water of the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean warms to significantly above the average. This affects rainfall patterns and weather across the world, raising temperatures globally for its duration.
El Niño is part of a phenomenon called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (Enso). El Niño events do not occur on a regular schedule, but on average appear every two to seven years. The opposite, cooler phase is called La Niña.
During La Niña, cooler-than-average sea temperatures are experienced in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Like El Niño, it affects patterns of rainfall and atmospheric pressure worldwide.
The growth of Kenya’s informal settlements is exposing ever-larger numbers of people to floods and heatwaves (which are made worse by climate change), due to high-density housing and poor drainage. That is according to last year’s “Climate change impacts in Kenya” report, which was led by the Kenya Meteorological Department.
As recently as 2022, the country experienced a prolonged drought that led to food insecurity and economic hardship for many. Periods of intense rainfall followed in 2023 and 2024.
Sharon Dimanche, chief of mission for the International Organization for Migration in Kenya, tells Dialogue Earth that migration and displacement in the country and the wider Horn of Africa has been rising due to droughts, floods and conflicts. She says the number of displaced people in the East and Horn of Africa stood at about 18.4 million in May 2024, and had risen to more than 20 million by September 2024.
“Climate change is becoming a big challenge, leading to massive displacement of people,” says Dimanche. “And as people get displaced within the region, Kenya is a recipient of those migrants.”
She notes the International Organization for Migration is working with the Kenyan government and other partners to protect those displaced as a result of the climate crisis.
Women and children disproportionately affected
Women and children were impacted disproportionately by the March-to-May floods. According to a report by Unicef, the risks were particularly severe for breast-feeding mothers, pregnant women and infants.
“Most of the risks existed prior to the floods, and the emergency exacerbated the underlying vulnerabilities,” states the report.
These findings were backed up by another report, published in June 2024 by Save the Children. Predominantly surveying six Nairobi sub-counties (Mathare, Ruaraka, Starehe, Kibra, Embakasi South and Makadara), it reported 31% of the children in these areas to be suffering from neglect, and 29% were not attending school. Conducted after Nairobi county’s floods, the report sought to provide an update of the area’s prevailing conditions in the immediate aftermath.
As part of its response, Save the Children provided mental health support and menstrual health supplies for 533 children affected by floods in the counties of Nairobi, Garissa, Wajir and Turkana.
“You can imagine the kind of negative experiences the children had watching their houses and household items being swept away and being left with nothing. Then having to spend nights – cold nights – without any shelter,” says Irene Wali, a child protection specialist at Save The Children.
According to Wali, child labour in those communities also grew as families tried to survive. Most children did not go back to school for the final term.
In the aftermath of these floods, the people of Mathare are not just dealing with physical and economic losses, but emotional scars, too. Battling for daily survival, many do not have the luxury of time or space to grieve.
Demolitions pile on the agony
Before residents could even begin to come to terms with their losses, the government told those living near rivers and other flood-prone areas to relocate. Those who remained after the deadline were forcibly removed. Many homes were bulldozed.
It dealt a blow to the hopes of many, who wanted to rebuild their lives and erect new homes along the Mathare’s banks.
“We were again left stranded with nowhere else to go,” says Okoth. “The structures were demolished and we were warned not to rebuild along the river.”
The residents are now counting on a high court decision made in November. It ordered the national government to compensate residents of Mathare, Gwa Kairu, Mukuru Kwa Ruben and Kiamaiko for their forced eviction and the demolition of their homes.
Besides displacing the residents, the bulldozers also introduced sanitation woes as toilets and the sewer line were destroyed.
“People are now going back to ‘flying toilets’ [plastic bags] or open defection, in areas where there are no toilets. The sanitary pads are being disposed of in the river,” says Susan Akinyi, a young person from Mathare.
Hope for the future
Despite the demolitions, survivors have displayed resilience by transforming the river banks. Where their homes once stood, there are now flourishing vegetable gardens, which provide essential nourishment and income.
In addition to their farming efforts, some of those affected by the demolitions are relying on a daily payment of KES 500 (USD 3.8) from the government’s ClimateWorX initiative.
This government initiative is focused on rehabilitating urban river ecosystems while creating job opportunities for young Kenyans. It involves removing waste, rehabilitating degraded riverbanks and planting trees along the waterways.
Kipchumba Murkomen, the Ministry of Interior and National Administration’s cabinet secretary, recently announced an expansion of the project. The workforce will rise from 20,000 people to 50,000, to provide more jobs.
The survivors that Dialogue Earth spoke to expressed the need for long-term support. Not just aid, but sustainable solutions, such as better infrastructure, flood defences and social programmes that could reduce their vulnerability in future disasters.
Dialogue Earth consulted Easter Okech, executive director and programmes coordinator for the Kenya Female Advisory Organization. The group works to eradicate gender disparities in the areas of education, health and work. She blames the government for being unprepared for such calamities: “There is supposed to be a budgetary allocation and contingency plans, such as emergency shelters and other things, but instead they are constantly caught off-guard.”
She also calls for communities to be more involved in the planning of urban development, especially those living in informal settlements.
This flood’s scars will never fully fade. But many in Mathare believe that, with continued support, education and improved infrastructure, they can emerge stronger and better prepared for future challenges.
