WW1 cemetery in Kenya 'only gets white visitors'

By Catherine Byaruhanga

At a World War One Commonwealth cemetery in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, out of 200 graves only three bear African names.

This reflects the findings of a report by The Commonwealth War Graves Commission that at least 116,000 mostly African and Middle Eastern casualties from that conflict "were not commemorated by name or possibly not commemorated at all".

The graveyard is in downtown Nairobi - next to a construction site for the city’s latest mega-highway. The rows of white identical headstones are in pristine condition - in sharp contrast to their surroundings.

One of the caretakers of the Nairobi South Cemetery tells me that relatives of some of those buried still visit, though it is only white visitors who come.

Macharia Munene, history professor at the University of Nairobi, says this is because African soldiers were “just buried wherever they were if they were buried”.

In the colonial era, Africans were sometimes treated as property not citizens, he says.

The apology from The Commonwealth War Graves Commission for failures to properly commemorate black and Asian troops has been welcomed.

But some historians, such as Prof Munene, are calling for it to go further - to identify the bodies of those killed and for them to be properly buried.

"They have records of who participated in the war, and if you know where they died, you can identify the grave," he told the BBC.

"And then the issue of visiting the graves and honouring them - that’s an easy thing to do."

This article was originally published by BBC News. [Photo: Commonwealth War Graves Commission]