Eight Cornell undergraduates and their staff leader were caught in the crosshairs of post-election violence in Kenya over the winter break, forcing them to leave the country in a tense, 40-mile journey to the Ugandan border.

Cornell officials stayed in steady contact with the project's staff mentor, Amanda Messinger '07, and on Jan. 2 approved the decision to evacuate the group west to Uganda. They then arranged a security detail through Uganda to the nearest airport.

The students are now all safely back in the United States and are only "relatively traumatized from the tensions," according to Messinger. Most expressed disappointment that they had been unable to finish their winter-break service project in Kenya to train locals on nutrition and managing HIV/AIDS as part of the Cornell Health International project.

Instead, their project had ended in nerve-wracking drives, protection by armed security guards as well as a scarcity of reliable information, some supplies and gasoline. However, the students did not witness any of the violence that erupted following the most fiercely fought presidential elections in Kenya's history on Dec. 28. The blood-letting left more than 600 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, according to the Associated Press.

Tensions between tribal groups rose as soon as the results were announced giving the election to incumbent President Mwai Kibaki. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, a popular favorite, accused Kibaki of stealing the election. Domestic air travel shut down, media reports within Kenya ceased, and roads and supply routes were blocked, making some supplies and gasoline scarce.

The students were staying at a compound owned by a Kenyan nongovernmental organization (NGO), Inter-Community Development Involvement, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the western town of Bungoma when the violence erupted.

"By Dec. 29, we were hearing reports of violence in Kisumu, about one and a half hours away, and we heard there were blockades in either direction," said Messinger, a health promotion assistant at Cornell's Gannett Health Services. "It was hard for us to know what was rumor and what was real."

Even so, the students did not immediately react to the events, possibly because information within Kenya was so hard to get. "Everyone, including ourselves, thought it was just a lot of hype, and we all thought that it would cool down eventually," said Hannah Schinbeckler '10. As a result, the group traveled from Bungoma to the Kakamega rain forest, where they stayed overnight. "The people at the reserve [asked] how did you get here, because everything was closed, and because many people, including most matatu [trucks used as public transportation] drivers, were too afraid to travel," said Schinbeckler. After many phone calls, the group found a ride back to Bungoma. But the drivers arrived late, without gas, and they had to drive around, at times coasting down hills, looking for an open gas station.

"The drivers were hotheads," Schinbeckler said. "They kept yelling at people outside the car, stopping groups of people congregating on the roads and asking them if they knew the election results. We pulled into a gas station, and a truck full of military men pulled in also, and the drivers talked and joked with them."

One of the Cornell students, Antony Kironji '10, grew up in Kenya before moving to Maryland at age 10. His family are members of the Kikuyu tribe, the same tribe as Kibaki's and a target for tribal violence. As a result, many of the Cornellians were concerned for Kironji's safety, but he said he was not worried, especially while traveling with a group of Americans.

"My uncle told me, 'don't go around advertising that you are Kikuyu,'" said Kironji. "I can turn my accent on and off. It's hard to tell who's who unless we hear them talk."

The violence continued to rise. On Jan. 1, a church was burned down in Eldoret, about an hour's drive from Bungoma, and more than 30 people were killed.

"That was the point when my conversation with Cornell started to get much more serious," said Messinger. She e-mailed and talked regularly by phone with David Wippman, Cornell vice provost for international relations and professor of law, who is about to leave Cornell to become the dean of the University of Minnesota Law School.

Fears of escalating violence mounted as an opposition rally was announced for Jan. 3. On Jan. 2 Messinger decided to make a dash for the Ugandan border. Cornell consulted with its international travel insurance agency, International SOS (ISOS), said Allen Bova, Cornell director of risk management and insurance. The head of the NGO arranged a truck for the group. With advice and suggestions from the staff of ISOS and the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Bova and Wippman also hired a Ugandan security company with armed personnel to meet the student group at the border and take them to the airport at the capital, Kampala. Throughout these negotiations, Wippman kept the students' anxious parents informed.

"We made the decision at 2 a.m. on Jan. 2; they were eight hours ahead in Kenya, and David made the decision to evacuate after consulting with Amanda," said Bova. Wippman was also in steady consultation with Jim Mingle, university counsel, President David Skorton and Provost Biddy Martin.

On the drive, said Messinger, "We saw remains of burned-down buildings and trees and burned tires from roadblocks," adding that they witnessed no violence.

Once the Cornellians reached the border, they still had to walk across a quarter mile of no man's land between Kenya and Uganda, then pass through immigration and pay for visas. Once in Uganda, they waited close to six hours for the security escort to show up. While they waited, Uganda's inspector general of police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, was passing by and visited with the students.

"The students are safe, and that's what matters," said Wippman. "For a while, though, it was a very tense situation."