King Charles’ visit to Kenya starting Tuesday (Oct. 31) will acknowledge the more painful aspects of the UK and Kenya’s shared history, Buckingham palace has said. However, Kenya’s independence struggle and the distant past is not the only issue there is to discuss.
When he was barely a teenager, Kenyan goatherder Lisoka Lesasuyan lost both arms to an unexploded bomb while crossing a field used in joint military exercises with the British army.
Lesasuyan was 13 in 2015 when an unexploded bomb detonated on a field used for mortar practice by British and Kenyan soldiers at Archer’s Post, a three-hour drive north of Nanyuki.
“I was grazing goats when I picked up the explosive, not knowing what it was. And I started playing with it, before it went off,” he told AFP, covering his amputated limbs with a checkered blanket.
Taken to hospital by British soldiers, Lesasuyan lost both arms below the elbow, part of his right eye, and suffered burns and hearing loss in the blast.
In 2018, the British Ministry of Defence paid him 10 million shillings (roughly $100,000 at the time) but did not admit responsibility, saying an inquiry failed to determine if the ammunition was British or Kenyan.
“But this is far from enough. He will need life-long medical care, as well as prostheses,” said Kelvin Kubai, a lawyer and activist who campaigned for Lesasuyan.
His case is not isolated.
In 2002, the British Ministry of Defence paid out 4.5 million pounds ($5.45 million) to 233 people claiming to have been injured by unexploded ordnance.
Nairobi and London dispute the origin of the munitions, as both nations’ armies train in these locations.
For decades, Britain has sent its forces to train in central Kenya but their presence has long attracted controversy, with soldiers accused of rape and murder, and civilians maimed by munitions.
The British Army Training Unit in Kenya (BATUK), a permanent base around 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Nairobi, is an economic lifeline for many in Nanyuki, but has proved a lightning rod for criticism.
‘Only God can help us’
In 2003, Amnesty International claimed to have documented 650 allegations of rape against British soldiers stationed in central Kenya between 1965 and 2001, and denounced what it called “decades of impunity”.
More recently, the tragic case of Agnes Wanjiru has brought fresh scrutiny to the British military base.
In 2012, the lifeless body of 21-year-old Wanjiru, mother of a two-year-old daughter, was discovered in a septic tank in Nanyuki.
She was last seen alive with a British soldier.
In October 2021, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that a soldier had confessed to his comrades to killing Wanjiru, and showed them her body.
The report alleged that the murder was taken to military superiors, but no further action followed.
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