British Military Training in Kenya: Survivors Demand Accountability Over Alleged Abuses

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Memusi Lochede, 46, sits beside her daughter Chaula, 24, who lies motionless on the floor of their Archer’s Post home, metal rods stabilizing a body shattered by injury. A donated wheelchair rests in the corner as Lochede wipes drool from her daughter’s chin, describing the emotional toll of caregiving.

“I have so much pain in my heart seeing my daughter in this condition,” Lochede tells Al Jazeera. “I feel ashamed that she needs so much help, and I don’t know how to help her.”

Chaula was struck by a BATUK vehicle in 2019 while crossing the road as a teenager. Her leg was amputated, and she spent nearly three years hospitalized, according to her mother, who says the driver hit and injured a minor.

A BATUK representative visited Lochede afterward, she says, apologizing and pledging to handle her daughter’s needs without litigation. The MOD states it has found no record of such contact.

Following discharge, BATUK covered hospital bills without providing receipts or disclosing amounts, Lochede claims, then vanished. She repeatedly called the community liaison officer—tasked with receiving complaints—who never answered, until she eventually gave up.

In August, the MOD confirmed BATUK is aware of the 2019 incident resulting in permanent injuries and said legal representatives contacted the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. A compensation offer was made but unanswered, the MOD says, adding that resolution requires verified medical information and Kenyan court approval given the claimant was a minor.

Commission deputy director Ruth Getobai Nchagwa says the body has never engaged BATUK directly, as letters went unanswered, and notes Chaula’s case remains unaddressed.

Lochede once supported five children selling beaded necklaces in Nairobi; now she cannot leave her daughter’s side. Chaula’s care costs roughly 30,000 Kenyan shillings monthly—more than Lochede typically earns.

“It’s a shameful feeling to pick up the phone and call so many numbers for help, and no one picks up your call,” Lochede says, fighting tears. “In those moments where I can’t provide for my daughter, I just lock myself inside the room and lie in my bed and cry.”

Once healthy and active, Chaula now barely speaks. “There are some days she wakes up and says just one word, like ‘food’ or ‘bathroom,'” Lochede says. “Those are the good days. Other days, she refuses to eat. I can see that she’s depressed and lonely. Inside, her soul is shattered.”

“These soldiers do these things because they know they can get away with it,” Lochede adds. “They know we don’t have money. We don’t have power. It’s extremely difficult for us to fight them.”

Chaula’s case is far from isolated. Last year, Kenya’s parliamentary defence committee completed a landmark two-year inquiry documenting decades of alleged BATUK abuses.

The 94-page report compiled testimony from Laikipia and Samburu, including a herder allegedly shot by a British sergeant, the alleged gang rape of 30 women at knifepoint in 1997, a boy losing both arms and an eye to unexploded ordnance, and women with children their British fathers never acknowledged.

BATUK declined to appear, citing immunities. The committee condemned this as contemptuous, calling it “emblematic of institutional contempt for the authority of Parliament and, by extension, the sovereignty of the people of Kenya.”

The committee concluded BATUK “is increasingly seen as an occupying presence rather than a development partner,” with residents drawing parallels to colonial injustices. Witnesses reported that suspected abuses go unpunished and are actively covered up, with police files often “going missing” and complainants “intimidated into silence.”

An MOD spokesperson told Al Jazeera the UK “deeply” values its relationship with Kenya, its “defence partner of choice in East Africa,” and is “addressing concerns raised by Kenyan authorities and communities, focusing on legal accountability, ethical standards, environmental stewardship, economic benefit and social responsibility.”

Regarding road incidents, the MOD stated BATUK “cooperates fully with the local authorities and Kenyan Police,” that all such incidents are “investigated thoroughly,” and that “where claims are made, BATUK submits to the jurisdiction of the Kenyan courts.”

When asked about progress on committee concerns and specific cases, the MOD referred Al Jazeera to its written inquiry submission, which denied evidence of collusion to suppress complaints or intimidate victims, stating such evidence “would be taken extremely seriously and investigated accordingly.”

Professor Awino Okech of SOAS University of London said the parliamentary report points beyond individual abuses. “This is no longer a case of a few bad apples but reckoning with what many will interpret as accepted militarised institutional culture.”

“The fundamental question the British government is being asked to reflect on is their responsibility when there is a documented pattern of malbehaviour by their employees in a foreign country,” Okech said.

She noted the pattern cannot be separated from race. “We cannot ignore the racialised element. In this case, it is visible when crimes committed in Kenya are taken less seriously.”

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