why ambassador bethuel kiplagat should quit for kenya to attain ...

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them to confess to owning a rifle. Some died of their wounds before they reached
Wagalla Airstrip. Those who reached the airstrip were sorted into sub-clans and
up to 30 members of Jebrail sub-clan were burnt alive in an orgy of
unprecedented violence. Their clothes were piled on top of them, petrol or some
other highly flammable chemical was sprinkled on the clothes, and a bonfire
whose fuel was human flesh was created. The other detainees watched as their
colleagues were roasted alive. The rest of the men were forced to strip naked and
told to squat in the hot sun – those who resisted were shot. The late Ahmed Khalif
reported that the detainees were held at the airstrip for five days; that they were
denied food and water; and that during this period those who tried to pray were
shot. In those five days, more than 1000 people starved to death, shot for
questioning the orders of the forces, or died at the hands of gangs which were
allowed into the airstrip at night to carry out revenge against those whom they
held a grudge.
On the fifth day the remaining men bolted, broke the barbed wire fence and ran
for their lives. The military opened fire and hundreds were shot — many in the
back — and killed. The stampede helped most escape into the bushes where they
received needed help from nomads in the bushes. It was an escape that should
have come on the first couple of days before so many were murdered, but without
it the Degodia people would have been wiped off the map. The military found
itself amid thousands of dead and injured men. The plan had gone awry: men had
escaped and told others what happened. The military attempted a massive coverup
that involved piling the dead and injured into lorries and dumping them in the
bushes; many bodies were also disposed of by fire and acids. A rescue attempt by
the current Minister for Northern Kenya and Arid Lands, Mohamed Ibrahim Elmi,
Catholic nun Annalena Tonelli, businessman Noor Unug and others saved many
people who were ferried into various parts of Wajir district by the armed forces.
That is how Wagalla Massacre took place. The survivors’ stories are almost
unbelievable.
One survivor says that he had never stepped into Wajir town before Februray 9,
1984. He decided to visit his father there; they were both picked up by the
military the night he arrived and he found himself at Wagalla naked, hungry and
thirsty and watching as life ebbed out of his father. Another survivor woke up in a
pile of bodies in a depression in a bush; next to the his 16 year old cousin’s corpse
— just an innocent boy shot at back of the head. One survivor escaped in the
stampede naked and found a young girl herding goats who helped him cover his
shame with her scarf .
It has been exactly a quarter of a century since the Wagalla Massacre. In these
years the victims have refused to stay quiet, the dead are bursting out of their
graves and giving clues to those who wish to resolve the massacre. The available
evidence is sufficient to recreate what happened at Wagalla. It is still possible to
give State Council M. Ole Keiwua the specific information he requested, in order
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