Kenya: Leopard Attack Victim's 10-Year Ordeal As He Seeks Pay From KWS

The Nation (Nairobi)

10 November 2007
Posted to the web 12 November 2007

Cosmas Butunyi
Nairobi

Ten years is not a particularly short time, especially for a man chasing Sh10,000 compensation from the Kenya Wildlife Service after a vicious attack by a leopard.

But Mr John Obura Nyangure is not about to give up; he is keeping his hopes alive that one day he will receive the money that he was awarded as damages for the injuries he sustained during the attack in December 1994.


On the fateful Tuesday morning, as he walked to work from his Manyatta home in Kisumu town, Mr Nyangure was mauled by the beast, leaving him with deep head wounds.

Unknown to him, the animal had been lying behind a rusty iron-sheet fence on one side of the path he took to work.

As he passed by, it leapt over the fence and pounced on him, landing on his head with sharp claws.

And as man and beast struggled, a set of claws dug into his face.

"The leopard's intention was to break my neck or blind me, but thank God, I survived the ordeal," Mr Nyangure recalls.

Until today he cannot explain how he mustered the strength to fight off the beast, and calls it a miracle.

Animal's paws

"I held the animal's paws and wrestled with it for a while before it let go of me and I fell to the ground as it attacked a woman who was passing by," he says, rising from his seat during the interview at his home to demonstrate how he struggled with the animal.

That fateful morning, six other people were attacked by the leopard.

When Mr Nyangure fell to the ground during the fight with the cat, his clothes soaked in blood, many residents who witnessed it all, thought it had killed him.

"Some women even broke down into tears as they saw me being carried onto a vehicle," he explains.

Good Samaritans took him to the Nyanza provincial hospital where he stayed for three days. By the time he was discharged, he had incurred a Sh3,340 hospital bill - quite some money according to his limited means.

Medical reports said he had suffered "severe multiple lacerated wounds", and received stitches. And it took him about three months to fully recover and resume duty as a surveyor at the Lake Basin Development Authority.

He took up the matter with KWS and, after a long battle, the Kisumu district wildlife compensation committee, chaired by a district officer, Ms Irene Ondeng', met to resolve it.

According to the minutes of the meeting, the committee comprised the area warden, a senior Kisumu county council official and the district medical officer of health.

Mr Nyangure and the other complainants, six of whom were fellow victims of the leopard attack, were awarded compensations ranging from Sh6,000 to Sh30,000.

He was given Sh10,000 but up till now, he is yet to receive a penny of it. The search for compensation has seen him knock at numerous doors, but without success.

He has seen wardens come and go, and to every new officer, he has patiently introduced his grievance, keeping his fingers crossed that one day the money will come jingling into his pocket.

But deep down his heart, the surveyor absolves the KWS officers, saying that the delay in processing his claim has nothing to do with them.

"The officers have always wanted to help me, but the problem lies at the headquarters," he says.

Letters have been written and attached to his claim before sending to the headquarters in Nairobi, but none has been replied to.

Mr Nyangure has been to Nairobi on several occasions to pursue the matter, but every time he is told that there is a new director in office who needs time to study his file before giving directions.

The KWS assistant director in charge of the western Kenya region, Mr Julius Kimani, admits that rarely do compensation claims take as long as Mr Nyangure's.

"A claim used to take about a year to process, but it is now done as fast as possible, sometimes taking only weeks," he adds.

The optimism with which the victim began pursuing the compensation is fast fading, and he is considering taking legal action against the KWS.

"I have been reluctant to look for a lawyer because it would mean splitting the compensation to pay the legal fee, but that is better than losing it altogether," he reasons.

He says some of the people who suffered attacks by the same leopard have since died without seeing a penny of their compensation.

Father of 10

What baffles him is the time the pay has taken, and he wonders whether it will be the same amount awarded him or plus interest.

"Ten thousand shillings was then a lot of money, but what can it do now?" wonders the father of 10 children aged between 17 and two, the eldest being in Form Two. "It can barely pay one year's school fee for a child."

But Mr Kimani says there is no chance that a cent will be added to Mr Nyangure's award, arguing that there is no provision for interest on such compensation.

Moreover, he will be compensated based on the then committee's recommendations. This does not deter him in the least though. "I have to get it," he vows.

Mr Nyangure is as good as fully recovered, but occasionally, he says, the wounds become painful and emit pus.

In his compensation claim, a doctor's report described his condition as a "permanent disability from painful scars".

He does not mind the scars, especially the one on his scalp where no hair grows, especially when it is not painful, but one of his two wives is concerned that it has altered his looks.

"She frequently tells me that the leopard destroyed my looks," he says with a chuckle. The delay in processing of Mr Nyangure's claim is baffling as, he says, he followed the stipulated procedure as laid down on the KWS official website.

"After filling a compensation claim form immediately after an injury, it is passed on to the district warden who presents it to the district wildlife compensation committee to recommend compensation," it reads.

Loss of life

A loss of life usually attracts Sh30,000 compensation from the central treasury, while awards for injuries, though based on the committee's recommendations, average Sh15,000.

Mr Kimani says the rates have since been reviewed and that, currently, compensation may be as much as Sh250,000 for death.

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"A bill is in Parliament which, if passed into law, will raise the compensation limit to Sh1 million," he adds.

From the district, the compensation form goes to the KWS director's office for scrutiny before it is passed onto the ministry headquarters where approval for payment is obtained using funds from the central government.

According to the KWS website, beginning March 2002, the pay cheque from the KWS should be sent to the recipient's district commissioner through the district warden.

I say get another wife if she doesn't like his new looks.