Kenya receives about $400,000 annually from Britain so soldiers from the European nation can undergo training in some of the East African nation’s sprawling wildlife conservancies, per CNN. The British soldiers usually train in conservancies in Laikipia and Samburu counties.
But in 2021, locals registered their displeasure with this arrangement after both countries renewed the defense pact. The presence of British soldiers in such locations has been scrutinized particularly because there have been multiple reports of them raping Kenyan women, fathering their children, and abandoning them.
Besides rape, there have also been allegations of murder, and all of these alleged crimes date back to the 1950s. During the 1970s and 80s, soldiers with the British Army were accused of rape by women from the Maasai and Samburu communities.
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In 2021, Face2Face Africa published a feature story about the murder of a Kenyan woman who was last seen in a hotel with British soldiers. The body of Agnes Wanjiru was found in a septic tank at a hotel in central Kenya in June 2012, about three months after she disappeared. The 21-year-old single mom was last seen by witnesses on the night of March 31, 2012, walking out of a hotel bar in the garrison town of Nanyuki, Kenya with two British soldiers. Wanjiru had dropped out of high school and had become a hairdresser before turning to sex work to look after her baby.
Witnesses said she had joined the British soldiers at the Lion’s Court hotel’s bar, with the hope of getting a client who would pay her for sex so she could feed her baby. And after spending an evening partying with soldiers, her body was found by a hotel worker nearly three months later in a septic tank that was behind a room where the soldiers had stayed. She was found naked but for her bra, with missing body parts and a stabbing injury, according to BBC.
No suspect has been arrested or charged with the murder. In 2019, a Kenyan judge concluded after an inquest that Wanjiru had been murdered by one or two British soldiers. The judge, Njeri Thuku, ordered two further criminal inquiries, but no action was taken by the military, according to Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.
The Sunday Times reported that a soldier it spoke with said the killer had confessed to him and he had reported it to the army. The army however did not investigate it. Soldiers reportedly joked about the incident on Facebook. Kenyan detectives also reportedly asked British military police to question some of the soldiers. However, the UK’s defense ministry said it never received such a request, BBC reported.
The products of these alleged rapes are also evident as some Kenyan mothers living in areas with the presence of British troops have biracial children. But such children, whose British fathers have abandoned them, are ostracized by their communities, per CNN.
“They call me ‘mzungu maskini,’ or a poor white girl,” Marian Pannalossy, who is 17 years old and mixed-race, told the news outlet. “They always say ‘Why are you here? Just look for connections so that you can go to your own people. You don’t belong here. You’re not supposed to be here suffering.’”
Marian said that though she has never crossed paths with her father and has no idea about his identity, she believes he was a British soldier. The UK military has received rape complaints from Mirian’s mother and hundreds of other Kenyan women over the years, per CNN.
“I don’t know why God is punishing me. I don’t understand,” her mother, Lydia Juma, initially said in a 2011 documentary titled, The Rape of the Samburu Women.
Despite their predicaments, it appears there’s light at the end of the tunnel as these victims can now have their cases heard in Kenyan courts – thanks to an amendment of the 2021 defense pact Britain and Kenya signed.
Per the agreement, Kenyan courts can hear lawsuits brought against British soldiers. Human rights abuse cases in the East African nation also have no statute of limitations.
Kelvin Kubai, a lawyer, is currently working on bringing justice to women who have accused British soldiers of rape over the years. He has managed to gain the signatures of over 300 women who have brought rape allegations against British soldiers over the years, CNN reported. He is making arrangements to bring back such cases in Kenyan courts.
“It is traumatic and psychologically disturbing to people like Marian and many others who continue to see the British training amidst them with all these unresolved trauma and historical injustices,” Kubai told the news outlet.
“We can win because we have a very progressive constitution. The Kenyan legal system offers a better redress than what is available in the UK.”
The lead plaintiff in the case will be Marian.
