I wish to brief you and the GlobalGiving family over the current situation in Kenya.

We have been a peaceful Country in a generally troubled region and people sort of took the peace for granted.

The country is now battered almost to a pulp with blood spilt with vengeance, senseless killings and wanton destruction. Markets, food stores and shops have been looted. Hospitals are dysfunctional and health centers incapitated by riots and barricades.

The violence, death and destruction witnessed in the Country for the last one week has jolted the Nation into conscience and every body is now craving for normalcy.

Peace is slowly returning to all affected parts of the Country but the impact of the riots has been devastating. Hundreds of people have been killed turning thousands of innocent children into helpless orphans and over one million people have been displaced becoming internal refugees over night.

The impact of the riots is most felt in the micro and small business sector. Over 1 million small businesses were looted and or burn down destroying the only source of income to millions of Kenyans. Most of the fighting and destruction occurred in slum areas in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru and Kericho in Rift Valley. These regions are home to over 70% of EbF’s clients and as you can imagine almost all our clients in these regions have been affected by the riots. Only one region- (Mount Kenya) which is home to about 20% of EbF’s clients was spared the violence.

We are still auditing the riots impact on our clients and by this morning about 4,564 of our clients had been badly affected by the riots.

About 1,532 of our clients were displaced and both their homes and business premises burnt down and are currently housed in church compounds and police stations. Another 2,143 clients had their business premises burnt down or looted leaving them with no source of income at all. 833 clients had their homes looted or burnt down and about 56 clients are missing and feared dead or critically injured.

The biggest task at the moment is to:

--feed and house the displaced people

--and to finance the reconstruction of the small businesses that were affected in order to enable the people re claim their source of income.

EbF has formed the following committees to address the above issues:

A humanitarian committee that is working with the International Red Cross to provide food, shelter and medical care to the victims. A business reconstruction committee that is working with the affected clients to re finance and rebuild the small businesses that were looted and or burnt down. A compliance committee that is studying the legal and contractual aspects of the affected loans to arrive at the best policy action. This team will identify loans that we may need to re schedule, refinance and probably write off.

Today we began re financing the businesses that were burnt down/looted. We have set aside some US $ 94,000 for this purpose but this is US $ 220,960 short of the US $ 314,960 EbF requires to raise urgently to re finance the affected businesses.

James