Gallant air force fighters remembered in ceremony

What you need to know:

  • Yesterday’s event saw widows, widowers and orphans of soldiers who died throughout the history of the Air Force gather at the Talanta Theatre of the air base.

  • Hundreds of people, mostly women, trooped into the tightly guarded premises to remember their loved ones who died while serving in the Air Force.

  • And when the time came for some widows to narrate the experience after losing their husbands, the room fell deathly quiet.

The Moi Air Base in Nairobi’s Eastleigh Saturday opened doors to a category of visitors it has never let in as a group since its creation more than 50 years ago.

Hundreds of people, mostly women, trooped into the tightly guarded premises to remember their loved ones who died while serving in the Air Force.

And when the time came for some widows to narrate the experience after losing their husbands, the room fell deathly quiet.

First was Jamila Nthenge, who tearfully narrated how her husband, Lieutenant-Colonel John Letia, who was a fighter pilot at the Laikipia Air Base at the time of his death, sacrificed his health to ensure there was no effort spared in the war against al-Shabaab in Somalia.

CANCER

Her husband, she told an attentive crowd, developed a lump on his neck in 2012, a time when Operation Linda Nchi was on full steam.

“As a fighter pilot, he was required to be there because of the air strikes that were needed,” she said.

It was not until 2014 that Col Letia could go for medical check-up and was diagnosed with stage four cancer.

He later lost the battle.

They had two children aged 10 and three. Taking care of them and adjusting was a tall order for the widow.

“Nobody feels us. As a widow, it’s only a fellow widow who will feel what we feel; the pain we go through,” she said.

ACCIDENT

The families of deceased soldiers also heard a moving narrative from Caroline Muthoni, the wife of Sergeant Ephantus Muriuki who died in 2006 alongside five of his colleagues when their vehicle was involved in a road accident at Maai Mahiu.

Adjusting to the loss, Ms Muthoni said, was tough.

“I kind of lost my memory. I could not remember my phone number, ID number, names of places. And I really needed someone to walk beside me as they monitored the way I was getting out of it,” she said, as some members of the audience looked lost in their thoughts, perhaps reliving the tough times they faced themselves.

Then there was Ali Hassan Mahmud who retold the sad story of losing his wife, a Kenya Air Force soldier, in 2015 following birth complications.

APPRECIATED

After him was Fredrick Muli Jr, whose father, Major Fredrick Muli, died in April 1992, two months before he was born. Major Muli died in a plane crash.

“Eventually, I recognised and appreciated the sense of responsibility that incident bestowed upon me,” said Mr Muli.

Yesterday’s event was the product of deliberations by the Defence Council that oversees operations of the military.

According to Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo, the fact that the number of those widowed has been rising jolted them into action.

“At the Defence Council, we began to grapple with this matter, especially because we began to see what I call the jacaranda widows, the young widows who had lost husbands at war in Somalia,” she told the gathering.

WELFARE CENTRES

The end result, she said, was the council telling the various formations of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) to seek ways of giving more assistance to those left behind after their loved ones die on duty.

The Kenya Air Force, under Major-General Samuel Thuita, was the first to take up the council’s recommendations.

Yesterday’s event at Moi Air Base also marked the launch of two other welfare centres — in Laikipia and Wajir — that will be helping families of departed Air Force fighters.

“The units have also established welfare officers whose mandate is to ensure that all the target personnel do not feel forgotten,” Gen Thuita told the gathering.

Asked to put an estimate to the number of army widows and widowers, Ms Omamo said they do not “objectify” them.

TALANTA THEATRE

“We treat them as human beings. That’s what they are first; they’re not numbers,” she told journalists.

But she admitted that the war against al-Shabaab was a contributing factor to the initiative to honour the families.

Yesterday’s event saw widows, widowers and orphans of soldiers who died throughout the history of the Air Force gather at the Talanta Theatre of the air base.

They were treated to performances from schoolchildren, Air Force soldiers and the Air Force theatre troupe.

Gen Thuita said his officers had burrowed through volumes of files to find contacts of the people who showed up at the air base yesterday.

DATABASE

“The officers traced records for 55 years and compiled a detailed database of our surviving, retired personnel, grieving and deceased and hence our very current records on widows, widowers and orphans,” he said.

The guests also enjoyed lunch inside the camp. Gen Thuita said the event will now be happening the Saturday after June 4 of every year.

One of the highlights in yesterday’s event was a moving speech by Captain Sally Sabala, the first woman to ever fly a KDF jet fighter.

FLIGHT TRAINING

Capt Sabala is in the category of air force orphans as her father, Sergeant Sabala, worked as a technician at the Laikipia Air Base in 2003. She was then in Form One at Alliance Girls and her mother had died earlier that year.

She told the gathering that she overcame the challenges to become a captain with the Air Force.

“I’m an instructor pilot at the flight training school. And I’m a captain. And also, I’m the first lady to ever fly a jet fighter in Kenya Defence Forces,” she said, drawing applause.