Soldiers’ kin desperately wait for compensation

In a dusty village on the outskirts of Othaya, Nyeri, carpeted by rows and rows of tea leaves, a wrinkled old man stares at a grave tucked at a corner of his piece of land. His face appears aged by the torment of losing his only son.

Maina Karari remembers it as if it happened yesterday. Nearly two years ago he buried his son, 24-year-old Army Private George Karari who had gone missing in action in the battle for Miido, Somalia, in June 2012. For weeks, the 51-year-old was on tenterhooks waiting for any news of his missing son.

KDF discovered his body three months later in September after the capture of Kismayu.

"We were not allowed to view his body because of the extensive damage caused by the torture he endured before he died," he recalls.

Nowadays, the only trip the father makes out of the village is to the Department of Defence Headquarters in Nairobi in search of compensation. "We don't know what is happening," he laments.

Reckless allegations

And he is not the only one. The family of Private Suleiman Adan, the only son of Mama Amina Suleiman also says it is yet to receive compensation. Suleiman endured the same agony in the hands of Al-Shabaab after the militants dragged his body in the streets of Kismayu.

However, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) pleaded for patience, citing the bureaucracy in processing compensation from the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom), under which the soldiers were fighting.

KDF Chief Julius Karangi, in an interview published in the latest edition of Majeshi Yetu, the official KDF magazine, has explained that the military has done its best on compensation.

Contacted by The Standard, military spokesperson David Obonyo said Karari's case is among those still being processed. "It's a long process following the compensation from Amisom. We handed in all the required documents and we are still waiting for it," he told The Standard.

Col Obonyo said: "The families of the fallen soldiers have been paid a death gratuity of about Sh234,000. This is as far as KDF goes. However, the other payment is done by Amisom and is a long process that starts from Amisom, the African Union and then the UN."

Gen Karangi also explained what KDF was doing on compensation. "We don't have any single case that we know of, or I know of, that today is uncompensated," he said in the publication. "If it is there, it is because of bureaucracy that is beyond Kenya, because when you are serving in a big organisation like the African Union or UN you would expect that processing a compensation is not an event but a process."

The KDF chief cautioned against speculation on the number of casualties of the war. "I have heard several voices in the country arguing that KDF has suffered so many fatalities in Somalia, and, even as we talk, that our soldiers continue to come back in body bags quietly sneaked into the country and all that. That is very dishonest, in fact very unpatriotic, on the part of those who make those reckless allegations," Karangi is quoted as saying in the magazine.

Within the first five months of the war when KDF was not part of Amisom, the military lost 11 soldiers. "Not having gone to war before, we did not have a policy in place on how to compensate for loss of lives in a battle environment," says Karangi.

The situation forced senior military commanders to hold a crisis meeting whose outcome was to convince the Defence Council to provide funds for compensation.

"The authority was granted and we compensated the 11 families at the rate of Sh4.3 million per family from our own organic defence budget as a one-off," he explained adding that together with commanders they held a meeting with the affected families.

But some families have alleged discrepancies in the amount paid for compensation.

Bernice Washo, the widow of Captain Willy Njoroge of 1st Kenya Rifles says: "I was able to get some amount but not similar to what other widows received."

Earlier in the year, Amisom responded to our queries over compensation for fallen soldiers.

"The standard death and disability compensation which is the UN standard and applied by the AU is US$50,000 (approximately Sh4.25 million)," a reply from Amisom read.

The AU was also non-committal on releasing the numbers of troops who have died in Somalia.

"While it is our duty to pay compensation for deaths and disability suffered by soldiers serving under Amisom, we are not in a position to make public the numbers. Under the Memorandum of Understanding between the AU and troop and police contributing countries, it is the prerogative of the contributing country to make such information public," an email sent to us from the Amisom Media Centre read.

After February 22, 2012, compensation for casualties went beyond KDF and also became a responsibility of the AU and the UN.

Karangi denies that KDF has neglected any of their soldiers stating: "The notion that we have neglected our own, that we have not compensated the family of somebody we lost, is not true," he said adding that he is appealing "to those people who go round telling Kenyans that is the case to cease and desist from engaging in pedestrian talk about such serious issues".

Some of the soldiers who paid the ultimate price include Privates Yussuf Abdullahi, Ronald Kipkemboi, Raymon Kirui, Isaac Kipkorir, Onesmus Juma Karisa, platoon commanders Lt Kevin Webo and Second Lieutenant Edward Okoyo and Corporal J Kiptum.