Mount Elgon District (Mt. Elgon District) was an
administrative district in the
Western Province of
Kenya
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. Its capital town was
Kapsokwony Kapsokwony is a small town in Bungoma County, Kenya. The town is part of Mount Elgon County Council and Mount Elgon Constituency.
Kapsokwony division has a population of 24,526, of whom 1,586 are classified as urban (1999 census International Lives ...
. In 2010, it was merged into
Bungoma County
Bungoma County is a county in the former Western Province of Kenya. Its capital is Bungoma town. It has a population of 1,670,570 of which 812,146 are males 858,389 females as per the 2019 census and an area of 2,069 km2. It has nine constitu ...
.
Geography and demographics
The district was located on southeastern slopes of
Mount Elgon
Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain's highest point, named "Wagagai", is located entirely within Uganda. . The district had a population of 135,033 (1999 census) and an area of 944 km
2.
Although Kapsokwony was the headquarters of the district,
Cheptais was probably the economic heart of the district, as it contributed a great deal to the economy of the district.
Mt. Elgon is predominantly occupied by the
Sabaots,
Iteso
The Iteso (or people of Teso) are a Nilotic ethnic group in eastern Uganda and western Kenya. Teso refers to the traditional homeland of the Iteso, and ''Ateso'' is their language.
History Origins
The exact origins of the Iteso remain uncl ...
and
Bukusu
The Bukusu people ( Bukusu: ''Babukusu'') are one of the seventeen Kenyan tribes of the Luhya Bantu people of East Africa residing mainly in the counties of Bungoma and Trans Nzoia. They are closely related to other Luhya people and the Gisu ...
communities.
Government
The district had only one local authority: Mount Elgon county council.
Parliamentary representation
The district had one constituency:
Mt. Elgon Constituency
Mount Elgon Constituency is an electoral constituency in Bungoma County, Western Kenya
After the 2013 general election, and the coming into effect of the new constitution, provinces became defunct and the country was now divided into 47 co ...
.
Land dispute
In the 1970s, some 600 Mosop families who lived in the forests around Mount Elgon were resettled in
Chebyuk to make way for a game reserve. They were soon joined by the Soy people; in the land allocations which followed the resettlement, the Mosop were given some 65 percent of the land, while the Soy were given the remaining 35 percent. Over the decades, other ethnicities moved into the Chebyuk settlement, which complicated the land situation.
A violent conflict began in December 2006 in the district between the Soy and Mosop subethnicities of the
Sabaot ethnic group over allegations of unfair land allocation. The
Sabaot Land Defense Force was formed, which led to a number of killings in the region. As of late 2007, some 150 people had died in the conflict, while over 45,000 people have been displaced from their homes in the Mount Elgon region to other towns such as Kitale, Chepkitale and Kimilili. (see
Mount Elgon insurgency
The Mount Elgon insurgency was a conflict that started in 2005 when the Sabaot Land Defence Force militia revolted in the Mount Elgon area, Western Kenya.
Background
In the 1920s and the 1930s, British Kenya had displaced many native Sabaots in th ...
)
References
External links
Dozens killed in Kenyan 'genocide'
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Former districts of Kenya
Western Province (Kenya)