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History: Kibra means ‘forest’. How Nubian soldiers’ land became Kibera.
Kibra is the Nubian word for forest. The name goes back to the soldiers who were settled here more than a century ago.
The soldiers
The British recruited Nubian men, originally from Sudan, into the King's African Rifles and gave them land on what was then the edge of Nairobi. When they left the army, the colonial government would not send them back to Sudan and treated them as foreigners.
The timeline
1902: the Kibra military reserve is set up, covering 4,197 acres.
1904: the area is assigned to the King's African Rifles as a home for Sudanese former soldiers, according to the 1933 Carter Land Commission report.
1912 to 1928: Kibera is run as a military reserve under army control.
1963: Kibera becomes part of the city of Nairobi. By then the Nubian land has shrunk to about 500 acres.
From 1979: government bulldozers knock down Nubian homes, without compensation, to make way for housing estates.
2009: Nubians are officially recognised as a Kenyan community.
2015: the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights rules on a Nubian complaint filed in 2006, finding that citizenship checks must not depend on ethnicity or religion.
2 June 2017: President Uhuru Kenyatta hands the Nubian Community Trust a certificate for 288 acres of Kibra at State House. The community had asked for 700.
July 2026: the Environment and Land Court upholds the community's title. (KNN report)
Much of the old reserve went to Nairobi National Park, Lang'ata Cemetery, Lang'ata Women's Prison, Jamhuri Park and housing estates.
Sources give different start dates, 1902, 1904 or 1912, depending on whether they mean the reserve, the army's assignment of it, or army control.
Sources: The New Humanitarian, Open Society Justice Initiative, Capital FM, The Elephant, Business Daily
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Kibra is the Nubian word for forest. The name goes back to the soldiers who were settled here more than a century ago.
The soldiers
The British recruited Nubian men, originally from Sudan, into the King’s African Rifles and gave them land on what was then the edge of Nairobi. When they left the army, the colonial government would not send them back to Sudan and treated them as foreigners.
The timeline
1902: the Kibra military reserve is set up, covering 4,197 acres.
1904: the area is assigned to the King’s African Rifles as a home for Sudanese former soldiers, according to the 1933 Carter Land Commission report.
1912 to 1928: Kibera is run as a military reserve under army control.
1963: Kibera becomes part of the city of Nairobi. By then the Nubian land has shrunk to about 500 acres.
From 1979: government bulldozers knock down Nubian homes, without compensation, to make way for housing estates.
2009: Nubians are officially recognised as a Kenyan community.
2015: the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights rules on a Nubian complaint filed in 2006, finding that citizenship checks must not depend on ethnicity or religion.
2 June 2017: President Uhuru Kenyatta hands the Nubian Community Trust a certificate for 288 acres of Kibra at State House. The community had asked for 700.
July 2026: the Environment and Land Court upholds the community’s title. (KNN report)
Much of the old reserve went to Nairobi National Park, Lang’ata Cemetery, Lang’ata Women’s Prison, Jamhuri Park and housing estates.
Sources give different start dates, 1902, 1904 or 1912, depending on whether they mean the reserve, the army’s assignment of it, or army control.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
