The story of the Talai and Kipsigi, two proud tribes from north-western Kenya, is one of more than a century of rights being violated and never recognised, not even after their country's independence, for which they helped fight.
In fact, they announced on British BBC radio that they are ready to go to the European Court of Human Rights.
According to the Talai and the Kipsigi, who originate from the Kericho valley where the country's largest tea plantations are located, the British colonial empire forcibly extirpated the ancestral inhabitants of those lands in order to cultivate them. Many of them resisted but were taken to detention camps on Lake Victoria, amidst malaria and tsetse fly, where almost all died, and many women had to abort. When Kenya gained independence in 1963, the survivors left detention and returned to what they considered their ancestral land. But they never recovered it. They say they have lived next to the tea estates as 'squatters' ever since.
Representatives of the Talai and the Kipsigi say they tried to meet with British Foreign Minister Liz Truss in May 2022, but were rebuffed, despite the fact that a petition with 100,000 signatures had been filed with the United Nations.