Minority Isaak-Harti community addresses the media over the planned registration of community land in Isiolo County on August 4, 2026. [Ali Abdi, Standard]
The minority Isaak-Harti community in Isiolo has started a four-day walk to Nairobi that is aimed at stopping the National Land Commission (NLC) from carrying out the planned registration of community land in three electoral wards in the county.
The march, involving about 100 individuals, started on Tuesday from Isiolo town at 9:30 am, and they are expected to arrive in Nairobi on Saturday at around 4 pm.
Next Monday, they will present their petition on the matter to the Government through the Office of the President, where they want to directly appeal to President William Ruto to intervene in their matter, Parliament, NLC, human rights organisations, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and local and international media.
NLC is set to carry out community land registration in Isiolo between August 11 and 26, 2026, and the Isaak-Harti want this process to be stopped in the current Burat, Ngaremara and Oldonyiro electoral wards that were in the former Central division when Isiolo was a district.
It's in these three wards that the community lay claim to land measuring approximately 3, 600 square kilometres (1,400 square miles). The Isaak-Harti community in Kenya were descendants of British soldiers who fought in the First World War and settled in various parts of the country, including Isiolo, during and after the battle between 1914 and 1919 by the colonial administration.
They lamented that they have been living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 1965 when the entire colonial Northern Frontier Districts (NFD) comprising Isiolo, Marsabit, Garissa, Wajir and Mandera were placed under the Emergency laws and dispossessed of their land through the villagisation policy of the same year.
The Jomo Kenyatta administration undertook a military campaign, historians say was riddled with human rights abuses in the region after it's leaders declared secessionist war in a bid to join Somalia. It was dubbed the Shifta war.