Survivors and families of victims of the 1998 attack on the US embassy in Nairobi on Monday (August 7th) renewed their demand for reparations from the US government, on the 25th anniversary of this deadly attack claimed by Al-Qaeda.
By mid-morning on August 7, 1998, a powerful explosion devastated the U.S. Embassy in the center of the Kenyan capital. Most of the 213 dead and more than 5,000 injured were bystanders or office workers in buildings near the embassy, where 44 people, including 12 Americans, were killed. Minutes later, another attack targeted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Dar es Salaam, in neighboring Tanzania.
On Monday, families of victims and survivors of the Nairobi attack renewed their demands for compensation at a ceremony held at the site of the former embassy, attended by Kenyan and American officials.
"Still fresh"
"This incident is still fresh" in the memories, said Anisa Mwilu, who lost her husband in the attack. "What we can ask for is compensation and that is what we are asking for today," she continued, to the applause of several hundred people present.
Caroline Muthoka, a member of the Consortium of Victims of the Attack, for her part vilified "the injustice of the American government", which has not approved financial compensation, calling on the US Congress to pass a law to cover in particular "medical expenses" and "the education of our children".
On the morning of the attack, Redempta Kadenge Amisi was in offices in the Ufundi Building, a building next to the embassy that was totally destroyed by the explosion.
"I still hope"
"I was on the fourth floor, the three people I was with were killed instantly," the 80-year-old, now in a wheelchair because of the after-effects of the attack, told AFP. "I didn't realize it but my back was on fire, I spent more than four weeks in the hospital. But since the attack, I have received nothing, no compensation while I have to take treatments morning and night. But I still hope to get some," she concluded.
At the ceremony, the names of the victims of the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam attacks were read before a tearful congregation and candles lit in their memory.
The attack was the first in a series of attacks in Kenya. The deadliest targeted the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013 (67 deaths), Garissa University in 2015 (148 deaths) and the Dusit hotel complex, also in Nairobi, in 2019 (21 deaths).
With AFP
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