The river had swallowed him whole before anyone realised the danger. It was early October last year, in Kakamega. The Kenya Meteorological Services Authority (KMSA) had already issued a warning that ...

On January 14, the UK-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) exposed a wide-ranging black-hat image-laundering scheme that implicated government and philanthropic leaders. Among the culprits, ...

Monica Atieno is a Kenyan researcher and journalist interested in how technology, policy and power shape people’s everyday lives. Her work focuses on digital rights, labour and governance, with a ...

Joshua W.J. Brown is a Toronto-based Canadian writer, filmmaker, and independent researcher working across history, political architecture, public systems, and cultural criticism.

Pastoralists offer significant potential for a sustainable future in Africa’s dryland frontiers. However, this potential is increasingly threatened by both human and natural challenges. Pastoral ...

I owe Andrew Mtagwaba Kailembo, who has died at the age of 92, a debt of gratitude. News of Andrew’s death on 6 March 2026 took me back to early 1990, when I got my first permanent and pensionable job ...

The New Native should not become the old Native with a better genealogy. That is the danger I keep hearing underneath the question The Elephant has been asking this year. The “New Native” in this ...

Thirty-three-year-old Emmanuel is a freelance hairdresser in Nairobi. He is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo and has lived in Kenya for six years. The young man is chic, dressed in ...

The news of Kelvin Kiptum’s death came as a shock. I was in India for a book festival when, scrolling through social media, I saw a post announcing his passing. I stared blankly at my screen, in shock ...

I grew up on a staple of detective novels. Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, P.D. James, Colin Dexter… there was always the smart forensics team that ultimately cracked the case. The dried blood stain ...

History in the Horn of Africa is rarely allowed to remain history. An ancient civilization becomes evidence of modern sovereignty. A medieval dynasty becomes proof of national continuity. Territory ...

The political violence that characterized Linda Mwananchi’s forceful entry into Homa Bay and earned the county online mimetic mockery and nicknames such as Afgoonistan or Yemen didn’t begin in either ...