The boys who saved Nakuru: Heroes or criminals?
As the ICC prepares to prosecute perpetrators of the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya, Isaac Newton Kinity asks whether the court will view the boys who killed militia to defend the town of Nakuru – and who unwittingly prevented further bloodshed – as heroes or criminals.
When the word leaked that the Kalenjin militia would attack and burn Nakuru town, the third largest town in Kenya in the early morning of the 21 January 2008, young boys, some of who had lost their parents in the previous attacks and killings in the span of over 14 years of mayhem, said enough is enough. It was the time when fleets of army trucks and private owned lorries, carrying women and children, youth and the elderly, some with deep cuts and others with burns and deep wounds, continued to flow to Nakuru town and through the town to other places like Gigil, Naivasha, Nyahururu and elsewhere for safety.
Before the militia attacked Nakuru, they attacked and burned Githima village within the Nakuru Municipality, Mwariki and Kiamunyi. In the early morning of 21 January 2008, the Kalenjin militia arrived in Nakuru town and without the slightest awareness that some brave young boys from Nakuru town were waiting for them, they started their mission.
Most of the Nakuru residents who were aware of the attacks had moved out of town with their belongings. The militia started by burning the Jua Kali garages and other buildings around. They did not know that they had already been surrounded by the young brave boys who had totally been convinced that the Kenya government was not ready to save the town and its residents, following the government’s previous inaction to save Kenyans from attacks and killings in Eldoret, Kitale, Kericho, Molo, Njoro, Githima and most horrifying the women and children who were burnt alive in the Kiambaa Church in Eldoret just a few weeks before.
As soon as the militia had burned a number of houses in Nakuru town, the young boys descended on the militia and killed most of them except a few who managed to escape. In the latter ours of the morning, many bodies of the militias laid dead. The young boys knew little that they had not only saved Nakuru town but they also saved Kenya from genocide. As the ICC comes closer day by day to prosecute the perpetrators of the 2008 post-election violence, Kenyans wonder whether those brave Kenyan boys who not only stopped the demolition of the third largest town in Kenya and deaths of it residents, but also stopped the would-be genocide, are heroes or criminals in the eyes of the ICC.