All events · The Long Emergencies

Kenya's 2007–08 Post-Election Violence and Displacement

2007–2008 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Displacement Mass Killing Sexual Violence

Displaced

663,921

Kenya's Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (the Waki Commission) recorded at least 663,921 people internally displaced, the figure cited by Human Rights Watch. The ICC Prosecutor's filings used a lower figure of approximately 350,000. The Waki number derives from government and Kenya Red Cross registration of displaced people at camps and host sites; the ICC figure appears to count a narrower category. Many of those displaced were tenants and farm workers who never returned to the Rift Valley.

Share of the population affected

1.8%

of the population of Kenya at the time of the December 2007 election, 2007

Killed

at least 1,133

Documented minimum; the full toll is higher. direct killing

Open on the interactive map →

What happened

The disputed announcement of Mwai Kibaki's re-election on 30 December 2007 set off two months of violence concentrated in the Rift Valley, Nyanza, western Kenya and the slums of Nairobi. Attacks were organized along ethnic and political lines, with the burning of homes, evictions of tenants and farm workers, killings at roadblocks and, in the most notorious case, the burning alive of dozens of people sheltering in a church at Kiambaa. Police shot large numbers of demonstrators. The Waki Commission documented 1,133 people killed between 27 December 2007 and the end of February 2008 and at least 663,921 internally displaced; the ICC Prosecutor cited over 1,000 killed, more than 900 documented acts of rape and sexual violence, over 3,500 seriously injured and around 350,000 displaced across six of Kenya's eight provinces. A power-sharing agreement in February 2008 ended the violence. The Waki Commission recommended a special tribunal; it was never created, the ICC cases against six suspects collapsed, and Human Rights Watch found that by 2011 only two murder convictions had resulted.

Parties

Organized youth gangs and militias aligned with rival political camps attacked communities identified with the other side, and police shot demonstrators, driving mass ethnic separation in the Rift Valley and beyond

Disputed

Responsibility at the political level was never judicially established: the ICC cases against all six suspects, including two men who later became president and deputy president, were withdrawn or not confirmed, with the Prosecutor alleging witness interference and the defendants asserting the cases were baseless.

The denominator

The 2009 census counted 38,610,097, implying roughly 37.7 million at the end of 2007. The Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (the Waki Commission) recorded 1,133 deaths and around 350,000 internally displaced in camps, with government and humanitarian figures for total displacement including those who moved in with host communities reaching about 664,000.

Displacement was concentrated in the Rift Valley, Nyanza and the Nairobi and Naivasha settlements rather than spread nationally, so the national share understates the effect in the affected districts.

Where the baseline comes from

2007–2008 Kenyan crisis — Wikipediaopen-edited
Demographics of Kenya — Wikipediaopen-edited

On the death toll

The Waki Commission's figure of 1,133 dead between 27 December 2007 and the end of February 2008 is a documented count of individual deaths, and functions as a floor rather than an estimate; the ICC Prosecutor described 'over 1,000' killed. Some Kenyan civil society organizations consider the true number higher because deaths in remote areas and among displaced people were not captured, but no higher figure has been systematically established.

Documented forms of violence

Mass KillingSexual ViolenceDestruction of Property

Documented by the Waki Commission, by the ICC Prosecutor's filings recording over 900 acts of rape and sexual violence, and by Human Rights Watch.

Formal findings

Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (Waki Commission), Kenya (2008) — Documented 1,133 people killed and at least 663,921 internally displaced, found the violence to have been in part organized and financed, and recommended a special tribunal to try those most responsible — a recommendation the government did not implement — source
International Criminal Court, Pre-Trial Chamber II (2010) — Authorized the Prosecutor's proprio motu investigation in March 2010 into crimes against humanity in Kenya; charges against all six named suspects were subsequently withdrawn or not confirmed, and the investigation was closed in November 2023 — source