Cabinet Minister weeps as he testifies to TJRC on Wagalla massacre

By David Ochami

Northern Kenya Development Minister Mohamed Elmi wept as he recounted the Wagalla Massacre to the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission.

As a new civil servant, the minister was a witness to the carnage that involved the hunt down of Degodia people for days between Buna and Modogashe.

Cabinet Minister Mohamed Elmi, who is Wajir East MP (Left), fought back tears before the TJRC at the KICC, Nairobi, Wednesday as he recounted events during the Wagalla Massacre of 1984. [PHOTO: GOVEDI ASUTSA/STANDARD]

He and a deceased Italian Catholic nun Anelina Tonneli faced the wrath of an officer in charge of the police/military operation when they tried to rescue the wounded, bury the dead, and document the atrocity for international attention.

A month after the killings, according to the minister’s testimony, the Government expelled the Italian leaving behind 300 widows she had been taking care of.

Elmi said one of his brothers was captured by security forces never to be seen again or his body traced.

The MP for Wajir East told the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission that as a newly qualified medical officer, he was involved in rescue and burial efforts and came across a mass grave, incinerated corpses, and raped women.

Detained men

Elmi said his two brothers were among the thousands detained at an airstrip between February 10 and 14.

He said in the days preceding the detention of thousands of men held without food or drink for days, local PC Benson Kaaria had threatened residents. "Kaaria had threatened before the operation that something would happen, that people would be beaten before their wives."

He said Kaaria and other Provincial Administration officials had, notoriously, issued incendiary statements and threats to exterminate sections of the Somali tribe, without fear of arrest.

And a retired senior civil servant John Kamenchu, who was in the Government entourage that visited Wajir four days before the blood bath on February 8, 1984, said the commission’s suspended chairman Bethuel Kiplagat was in the entourage that met the provincial security committee in Wajir before the killings.