In the Time of Need

Kenya’s Military Embraces the Role of Disaster Responders

BERENIKA STEFANSKA

The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) received global attention during the devastating terror attack at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi that left more than 60 dead in September 2013. The crisis tested the military’s capacity to manage and control an extended security incident on its home soil like few other events have in the nation’s history. Yet, every year, the KDF battles calamities that are equally deadly — natural disasters. These disasters do not attract as much international attention but are a testament to the role the KDF plays in Kenyan society.

Kenya’s Disaster Response Unit (DRU) was formed in 2006 soon after the collapse of a five-story building in downtown Nairobi. “There was an increased public expectation towards the role of the military in disaster response,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Maritim, commanding officer of the DRU. “After that incident, the public questioned why we are calling the international community to assist us on such things while we have our military. Why don’t we train so that we can be independent?”

Plans for a rapid-response unit had been in place since 1998 after the al-Qaida terror attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The incident led to the creation of the National Disaster Operations Centre (NDOC), which is responsible for the coordination of relief and rescue efforts nationwide. Eight years later, the DRU was formed as a KDF unit with a mandate to “respond to disasters in order to save lives and minimize injury to property when called upon.”

The NDOC is a government institution, but it has a distinctly military feel. Its director, Col. Nathan Kigotho, is a retired officer with more than 30 years of military experience. “Traditionally, the center was headed by a military officer because the government realized a person with a military background is best suited for the job of coordination of such operations,” he said.

Before its creation, according to Maj. K.K. Yaa of the DRU, crisis response often lacked coordination. “The nature of such events is chaotic,” he said. “The unskilled volunteers desire to save lives, [but] they end up endangering themselves, in addition to injuring those who are trapped, because the nature of their search and rescue is not systematic. We create orderliness in that response effort.”

To illustrate this point, Yaa recalled a 2012 rescue operation that his unit led after a building collapse in Mlolongo, a suburb of Nairobi. Even though the three-story building was under construction, some enterprising Kenyans had opened a diner on the ground floor. Diners were buried alive when the building collapsed at 6 p.m. one Saturday in June.

To minimize the risk to the rescuers and effectively coordinate the work of various agencies involved in the operation, the DRU first sent in its initial assessment team. “They noticed that there was water in the basement and that some of the rooms had tenants so the power was still on,” Yaa said. “This would pose a risk to the rescuers, such as the Red Cross and police when they were coming in. We had to call on our engineer brigade to bring in the heavy equipment to deal with the rubble and route clearance into the basement.”

Kigotho said the military’s other advantage is its manpower and its ability to deploy quickly. “The military has a big advantage because they can mobilize a big group of Soldiers very quickly, and they are able to come and do work in an organized, orderly manner, rather than bringing civilians who just crowd there, doing things in a very haphazard manner.”

During the 2006 building collapse, bystanders tried removing the rubble manually, often sending debris onto the heads of survivors buried underneath. This should not happen in the future, according to the military, thanks to state-of-the-art equipment the DRU received from the German military as part of urban search-and-rescue training. The new equipment includes hydraulic drills, pneumatic jacks and air bags, supports, metal and concrete cutters, pumps, lights and cameras, along with generators to power them and three trucks for transportation.

The KDF also uses air transport in disaster response, which has proved to be invaluable in a country as vast as Kenya. Airlift capacity is especially needed in the remote and arid north and northeast provinces, where villages are rarely connected by more than a dusty track. There is no mobile phone coverage outside a handful of urban centers in these regions, and electricity is a luxury. Drought is an ever-present threat, and if the rains come late, or not at all, there is little to sustain the population. There are 800,000 people who need food in the arid areas, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

This region also suffers the most from severe floods. Biannual rains bring life and relief to the baked landscape, but if the rains are too abundant, the scorched earth and narrow desert wadis (dry riverbeds) cannot hold the excess water. The rivers then burst their banks, and waves of brown sludge rush through the flat plains, driving people from their homes. Every year, about 60,000 people are displaced due to flooding across the country, according to OCHA.

Such a disaster struck in April 2013. Heavy rains fell near the provincial town of Garissa and caused Kenya’s largest river, the Tana, to flood, affecting more than 1,000 people. “Communities who farm on the flood plains up the river were mostly affected,” said Abdikadir Bare Musa, a teacher at the local college. “They are sometimes warned to move, but they don’t have anywhere to go. There was a terrible loss of property; families were being separated, and there was a lot of trauma and confusion.” By the way, for those people who still have their property after the disaster, they can hire the property maintenance team of https://www.newconceptproperties.com for help.

The gushing waters left many people cut off from help. Some sought rescue on high ground; some climbed the tall acacias and baobab trees. Soldiers aboard Kenya Navy pontoon boats and Kenya Air Force helicopters hastened to their rescue, picking up dozens of people from treetops. “There were military choppers going up and down the river looking for people and picking them off the trees,” Abdikadir said. “The people here don’t have boats, so they go up the trees with their property.”

The same long wet season affected towns across the north, including Isiolo and Merti. The majority of people in these areas live on less than $1 a day and have no security networks in place — food and aid had to be distributed to them as soon as possible. By a special order from the then-newly elected President Uhuru Kenyatta, the KDF flew in supplies. It delivered maize and beans, blankets, tarpaulins and soap to 2,000 victims of the downpours.

These operations are not without internal challenges. The military works with various government ministries such as those responsible for roads, health, agriculture and the environment. The police and fire brigade play important roles, as do various nongovernmental organizations and international organizations, the Kenyan Red Cross being chief among them. The NDOC’s strength is its close working relationship with the military, but Kigotho stressed that civilian stakeholders must also feel included in the planning.

The DRU is halfway through a six-year capability-building plan conducted under the aegis of the Combined Joined Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) of U.S. Africa Command. Although CJTF-HOA provides military-to-military training for the region, one of the main objectives of Africa Command is to improve civil-military cooperation. It aims to bring in stakeholders for training to ensure the smooth and efficient implementation of the incident command system, which Kenya is trying to roll out as the standard tool for emergency response across all agencies.

At its Embakasi base in southern Nairobi, the KDF is adding a new capacity of Combat and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Hazardous Materials Mitigation to the Disaster Response Unit. The KDF also plans to unify standard operating procedures, memorandums of understanding, and mutual aid agreements between the military and the NDOC.

The Army, however, would not like to become the first responder to all disasters. According to Maritim, the Army’s assistance should be solicited only in times of dire need. “Our role, specifically, is to assist the civil authority when their resources have been overwhelmed,” he said. “NDOC talks directly to DOD [Department of Defence] for requests. After justifying that all the civilian resources available have been exhausted … we are the last resort.”

In recent years the reality has been different. The military has been called in routinely to help with traffic accidents, landslides, transport or even borehole construction. There seems to be a consensus that in the short term, the KDF will continue to play a central role in emergency response to natural disasters until civilian authorities boost their capacity.

“There is an obligation for us to help,” Maritim said. “The objective of the KDF is to serve the public interest, and we have a mandate: The first is the national security, and the second is for disaster and emergency response. Moreover, as disasters happen, if they affect one sector of society, the cascading effects will also come to the military in terms of either stability of operations or security. I believe the military should intervene when necessary because we are part and parcel of our society.”

Sgt. First Class Roy G. Cheever III, who facilitates training of the DRU for U.S. Africa Command, has no doubt that Kenya is heading in the right direction. “Kenya will be the shining star in emergency services,” he said. “I foresee, in the next 20 to 25 years, that Kenya will be essentially the same in emergency response as any other country that you can pick in Europe or the Americas.”

Berenika Stefanska is an independent journalist based in Nairobi who covers East Africa for Reuters and other news outlets.