According to CNN, Kenya receives roughly $400,000 a year from Britain to allow soldiers from the European country to receive training in some of the vast wildlife conservancies in East Africa. Typically, Laikipia and Samburu counties’ conservancies serve as training grounds for British military.
However, after both nations extended their defense agreement, the locals voiced their disapproval of this arrangement in 2021. Due to several stories of British soldiers raping Kenyan women, fathering their children, and leaving them behind, their presence in certain areas has come under close scrutiny.
In addition to accusations of r**e, there have also been claims of murder, all of which are said to have occurred in the 1950s. Women from the Maasai and Samburu villages accused British Army servicemen of r**e in the 1970s and 1980s.
A feature article about the murder of a Kenyan woman who was last seen in a hotel with British soldiers was published by HowAfrica in 2021. About three months after Agnes Wanjiru vanished, her body was discovered in a septic tank at a hotel in central Kenya in June 2012. Witnesses last saw the 21-year-old single mother and her two British soldiers leaving a hotel bar in the Kenyan garrison town of Nanyuki on March 31, 2012. Wanjiru became a hairdresser after dropping out of high school and resorted to sex work to support her child.
According to witnesses, she had joined the British soldiers in the bar of the Lion’s Court hotel in an attempt to find a client who would pay her for sex so she could support her infant. And after she went out on the town with the soldiers for the evening, her body was discovered in a septic tank under one of the soldiers’ rooms almost three months later by a hotel employee. According to the BBC, she was found missing body parts, naked save for her bra, and had been stabbed.
No one has been charged or apprehended as a suspect in the murder. Following an inquest in 2019, a Kenyan judge found that one or two British soldiers had killed Wanjiru. According to the British Sunday Times newspaper, the military did not take any action despite the court, Njeri Thuku, ordering two additional criminal inquiries.
According to a soldier The Sunday Times spoke with, the murderer had confessed to him and he had notified the army of it. But the army didn’t look into it. On Facebook, soldiers were said to have made jokes about the incident. It has also been stated that British military police were summoned to question some of the soldiers by Kenyan detectives. But according to the UK military ministry, they never got a request like that, as reported by BBC.
The fact that some Kenyan mothers who reside in regions where British troops are stationed have mixed-race offspring is more evidence of the outcomes of these alleged r**es. However, according to CNN, these kids—whose British fathers have abandoned them—are shunned by their communities.
The news outlet was informed by 17-year-old mixed-race Marian Pannalossy, “They call me’mzungu maskini,’ or a poor white girl.” “They ask, ‘Why are you here?’ every time. Simply seek out relationships so that you can reach out to your own folks. You’re not welcome here. It’s not supposed for you to be in this pain.
Marian stated that even though she has never met her father and doesn’t know who he is, she thinks he was a British soldier. According to CNN, hundreds of other Kenyan women as well as Mirian’s mother have filed r**e allegations with the UK military over the years.
“Why God is punishing me is beyond me. The first thing Lydia Juma, her mother, said in the 2011 documentary The R**e of the Samburu Women was, “I don’t understand.”
Despite their circumstances, it seems there may be hope since these victims’ cases can now be considered in Kenyan courts as a result of a change to the defense agreement that Kenya and Britain agreed in 2021.
As per the agreement, cases filed against British soldiers may be heard in Kenyan courts. There is no statute of limitations for cases involving violations of human rights in the East African nation.
A lawyer named Kelvin Kubai is presently attempting to bring justice to women who throughout the years have accused British servicemen of r**e. CNN stated that he has secured the signatures of more than 300 women who have accused British servicemen of sexual assault over the years. He is putting plans in place to resurrect these cases in Kenyan courts.
“People like Marian and many others find the British training to be traumatizing and psychologically upsetting because of all these unresolved traumas and historical injustices,” Kubai told the news organization.
Our constitution is highly progressive, which is why we can win. The judicial system in Kenya provides superior recourse in comparison to that of the United Kingdom.
Marian will be the case’s principal plaintiff.