Compensate families of soldiers slain in El Adde, leaders urge State

Sunday February 14, 2016

Kenya Defence Forces in El Adde Somalia. Photo/COURTESY

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Trans Mara leaders have called on the government to compensate families that lost soldiers in the El Adde attack in Somalia.

Speaking at the home of officer Elias Kirionki who perished in the al Shabaab attack, the leaders said most of the slain soldiers left behind young families that depended on them for upkeep and it was the moral obligation of the government to ensure they were well taken care of.

Kirionki was among soldiers from the Moi Barracks Eldoret who died in Somalia. He will be buried at his Osupuko Village Home in Trans Mara West subcounty, Narok, on Wednesday.

“We appeal to the government to continue paying salaries of soldiers and other officers who die while defending our country as a way of consoling their families,” Chief Officer in Charge of Public Service Leboo Morintat said.

“This will also motivate their colleagues to be patriotic in defending our country from external and internal aggression.”

Joel Tasur, a politician, called on the government to be swift in paying benefits to the bereaved families, unlike in the past, saying delayed assistance was demoralizing to those left behind.

“The only way that the government can honour our heroes is to ensure soldiers families’ are well taken care of and al Shabaab whose agenda is to destabilize Kenya and other East African countries, are defeated,” he said.

A relative to Kirionki faulted the government’s handling of the issue saying families of the bereaved soldiers were kept in the dark since the El Adde attack, which left them in agony.

“We are calling on the government to look for better ways of handling similar occurrences in future. Members of the bereaved families kept looking for information on the whereabouts of their kin, instead of the government keeping them updated which is very wrong,” Dominic Taama said.

The leaders urged Kenya Defence Forces who are based in Somalia to be on high alert as al Shabab “devise new ways of attacking them day and night”.

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