Deep inside the Mukogodo Forest in Laikipia County the indigenous Yaaku community faces an existential crisis. Having lived as traditional forest dwellers and hunter-gatherers for generations, they now find their identity, land, and culture under threat of total erasure. The Kenyan government officially recognizes 44 ethnic groups living in the country. The Yaaku, a Cushitic hunter-gatherer tribe that settled in Mukogodo Forest, Laikipia centuries ago, are not one of them. Most Kenyans have never heard of the Yaaku – who live entirely inside the forest. Their language was in 2012 declared extinct by UNESCO. There were just ten speakers left of the language at the time. Assimilation, banditry and an ongoing military operation have left the community weakened and struggling to adapt to life outside the forest. But the Yaaku refuse to die, instead fighting bravely to keep their culture and language alive.
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