Election Violence and AIM AIR’s Response
February 19 2008
KENYA ELECTION VIOLENCE …and AIM AIR’s
Response
By Matthew Olson, AIM AIR General Manager
The airstrip was pretty easy to see. As it was surrounded by tall, green sugar cane, the 900 meters of light brown gravel stood out well. I flew over the town to alert my passengers I was coming; but didn’t get too low, to avoid anyone who might decide to take a shot at me. After touching down, I taxied back and shut down by the small road cutting across the western end of the strip to wait for them. I had only one other person on board, a bishop who needed to get to Nairobi to plead with the President that evening for peace. I had picked him up at a nearby town. After taking off my headset and opening the cockpit door, the bishop said, “We shouldn’t be here. This place is dangerous.”
It always took time, too much time, for the people in town to convince the local police to escort them out to the strip. But after about an hour, four vehicles with a cloud of dust in trail, came racing towards my aircraft. Several police got out first with automatic weapons. Then a number of men led their wives and children to the shade of my left wing. For the last several days, these families had been sleeping outside the nearby police station. Their houses had been burned to the ground. They had no food or water. They were tired and miserable, but worse than that, they were terrified. The violence and chaos which erupted after the Kenya election days before had unleashed a horrible nightmare on thousands of people. I was there to fly a handful of them to safety.
Our insurance broker kindly gave us one week to fly our airplanes above our normal seating capacity. We flew within our weight limits, but I was able to put two children under one seatbelt. On this flight, I had 21 people on my fourteen seat airplane. We always pray before we fly, so after a quick prayer, I cranked the engine and we were on our way. A little over an hour later, we landed in Nairobi. Then something happened which I will never forget. After pulling up to the terminal, my passengers refused to get off the airplane. I smiled and kindly asked what was wrong. The person sitting in the co-pilot seat next to me said, “You prayed for us before we flew; now we must pray and thank God for our pilot.”
As I write these words, the BBC is reporting over 1000 people killed and 350,000 displaced. Kenya is experiencing its greatest turmoil since Independence in 1963. Normally, we fly most of our aircraft from stable Kenya to its unstable neighbors. In disbelief, we are evacuating people from Western Kenya to Nairobi. Over the last several weeks, we have moved over 750 people on our small aircraft to safety and delivered nearly 25 tons of relief supplies to some of the hardest hit areas. However, the needs are overwhelming. Please pray with us that sanity would return to this land and God would bring peace and justice to this nation
For more information go to http://www.aimair.org
For pictures go here.
By Matthew Olson, AIM AIR General Manager
The airstrip was pretty easy to see. As it was surrounded by tall, green sugar cane, the 900 meters of light brown gravel stood out well. I flew over the town to alert my passengers I was coming; but didn’t get too low, to avoid anyone who might decide to take a shot at me. After touching down, I taxied back and shut down by the small road cutting across the western end of the strip to wait for them. I had only one other person on board, a bishop who needed to get to Nairobi to plead with the President that evening for peace. I had picked him up at a nearby town. After taking off my headset and opening the cockpit door, the bishop said, “We shouldn’t be here. This place is dangerous.”
It always took time, too much time, for the people in town to convince the local police to escort them out to the strip. But after about an hour, four vehicles with a cloud of dust in trail, came racing towards my aircraft. Several police got out first with automatic weapons. Then a number of men led their wives and children to the shade of my left wing. For the last several days, these families had been sleeping outside the nearby police station. Their houses had been burned to the ground. They had no food or water. They were tired and miserable, but worse than that, they were terrified. The violence and chaos which erupted after the Kenya election days before had unleashed a horrible nightmare on thousands of people. I was there to fly a handful of them to safety.
Our insurance broker kindly gave us one week to fly our airplanes above our normal seating capacity. We flew within our weight limits, but I was able to put two children under one seatbelt. On this flight, I had 21 people on my fourteen seat airplane. We always pray before we fly, so after a quick prayer, I cranked the engine and we were on our way. A little over an hour later, we landed in Nairobi. Then something happened which I will never forget. After pulling up to the terminal, my passengers refused to get off the airplane. I smiled and kindly asked what was wrong. The person sitting in the co-pilot seat next to me said, “You prayed for us before we flew; now we must pray and thank God for our pilot.”
As I write these words, the BBC is reporting over 1000 people killed and 350,000 displaced. Kenya is experiencing its greatest turmoil since Independence in 1963. Normally, we fly most of our aircraft from stable Kenya to its unstable neighbors. In disbelief, we are evacuating people from Western Kenya to Nairobi. Over the last several weeks, we have moved over 750 people on our small aircraft to safety and delivered nearly 25 tons of relief supplies to some of the hardest hit areas. However, the needs are overwhelming. Please pray with us that sanity would return to this land and God would bring peace and justice to this nation
For more information go to http://www.aimair.org
For pictures go here.