Families Of KDF Soldiers Killed at El Adde Cry Foul…Is The Government Hiding Something?

Kenyan authorities silent

The exact details of what went on at El Adde — and just how many Kenyan troops died there — remains shrouded in mystery.

The Somali government says 200 Kenyan soldiers, key to the African Union’s fight against al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab, were at the base that day.

Al Shabaab, which is known to exaggerate its figures, claims to have killed 100 Kenyans.

This time, though, the terror group may actually be underestimating: Two officials familiar with the recovery operations have told CNN that the Kenyan death toll from that day is at least 141.

Kenya’s government is yet to release official figures. On the day of the attack the Kenyan Defense Force (KDF) first said its soldiers were helping to repel an attack on a Somali National Army base before stating that the KDF had incurred unspecified losses.
But as the hours wore on and rumors intensified of just how fierce and bloody the fight for El Adde was, the press releases stopped and the KDF’s media wing went silent.
Kenyan soldiers stand over caskets bearing the remains of four slain comrades.
Kenyan soldiers stand over caskets bearing the remains of four slain comrades.
Information surrounding the attack needed to be handled “carefully” and “meticulously,” Cabinet Secretary for Defense Rachael Omamo explained, “for the benefit of the families of our soldiers.”
The KDF did not respond to CNN’s repeated requests for comment and information about the attack.
Its only public admission of what happened at the base since then has been the return of four flag-draped caskets home to Kenya.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta paid tribute to the four acknowledged casualties from the raid as they were brought home: “Their bravery is undimmed. And for this, we as a nation are grateful to all of them.”
In the months since, more coffins, more bodies have been quietly handed over, one by one, to the soldiers’ grieving families, often bringing with them more questions than they do answers.
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Corporal James Saitoti Kuronoi’s remains were subjected to seven DNA tests before they were finally identified and handed to his loved ones for burial, three months after he was killed.
Corporal James Saitoti Kuronoi was killed when Al-Shabaab militants attacked El Adde military base.
Corporal James Saitoti Kuronoi was killed when Al-Shabaab militants attacked El Adde military base.
As his body was lowered into a grave near that of his mother, in a quiet farming village near Narok, his eight siblings — their faces wet with tears — clutched each other for support.

Kuronoi’s was one of some 30 burials linked to El Adde that have been reported by local media in Kenya, but there are said to have been many more services that they could not cover.
A tank driver and father of two, Kuronoi sent photos and talked regularly to his wife, brothers and sisters from his “new home” at El Adde. He was on his second deployment to Somalia.
“[He was] our baby brother,” said Kuronoi’s sister Jackqueline. “He was always jolly. He had a permanent smile … And I don’t know, even in the family, who will ever fill that gap.”
A week before the attack, Kuronoi sent a message to his family asking them to pray for him. It was their last contact; after Al-Shabaab attacked the base, there was no news from him, he was nowhere to be found.

Jackqueline Kuronoi says the family went through weeks of uncertainty in the wake of the raid.
“You are looking for somebody … you don’t know where,” she told CNN.
“You hear that some people were taken by Al-Shabaab, others are still in hiding, others were hiding and killed, some were burned beyond recognition, and you don’t know where you belong. Where is our person?”

She praises the Kenyan Defense Force for its support of their family in the aftermath of her brother’s death, but with no official information released by the government, she has many questions about what happened that day.

“We would like to know who are these people? They died together. How many were they?” she said.
“It is a question that will live in our minds forever, because even if you have the body, what about the rest? How many were they? How many were rescued? You don’t know.”
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The coffin of Sergeant Juma Zahoro, who died at El Adde, is carried to his funeral in Mombasa.
The coffin of Sergeant Juma Zahoro, who died at El Adde, is carried to his funeral in Mombasa.
Sergeant Juma Zahoro, 41 and a father of three, served in the Kenyan Defense Force’s intelligence unit. He was approaching his tenth year of service on that fateful Friday in January.

Weeks later, his family offered prayers over his body at a mosque in Mombasa, before burying him in the city’s Mshale cemetery in a funeral attended by hundreds of family members, friends and fellow soldiers.
His father-in-law, Mwalim Rama, told those gathered at the steamy burial ground that young people should not be put off joining the military because of attacks like the one in which Zahoro was killed.
“Fighting and dying for your country is something one should be proud of,” he told the mourners. It is a message echoed by military commanders and Kenya’s Commander in Chief, President Uhuru Kenyatta.

CNN REPORTS