The El Molo, also known as Elmolo, Dehes, Fura-Pawa and Ldes, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the northern Eastern Province of Kenya.

A 1962 archaeological survey in the Northern Frontier District led by Susan Brodribb Pughe[4] observed hieroglyphics on a number of these constructions.

Most group members are today admixed with adjacent Nilotic populations, primarily Samburu, with only a handful of unmixed El Molo believed to exist.

[6] In the related Oromo culture, Waaq denotes the single God of the early pre-Abrahamic, monotheistic faith believed to have been adhered to by Cushitic groups.

[citation needed] Recent advances in genetic analyses have helped shed some light on the ethnogenesis of the El Molo people.

The El Molo group are characterized by a low haplotype diversity (0.88), close to that observed in Khoisan hunter-gatherers, and by the non-significance of neutrality tests and the multimodal mismatch distribution indicating small population size and strong genetic drift.

They also shared some ties with neighboring Nilo-Saharan and Bantu speakers in eastern Africa due to considerable genetic exchanges with these communities over the past 5000 or so years.