Nakuru and Kisumu, Kenya – Ogoyi Ogunde belonged to a proud household. His father had carved a house for his or her clan out of the earth in an space thick with bush, and amassed a wealth of cows and grain. He offered for them, making a vibrant group greater than a century in the past.
Because the eldest son, Ogunde was his father’s biggest pleasure – sturdy, clever, match to shoulder the privilege and burden of main the clan sooner or later. So when conscription officers got here to their village in the future and singled out Ogunde for the struggle – a struggle they’d by no means heard of, a struggle that had nothing to do with them – his father pleaded with them to not take him.
It was no use. The white males threatened him with jail, and carted Ogunde away.
“That was the final time anyone noticed him there. He didn’t come again,” recounts Patrick Abungu. The lack of Ogunde broke his father’s spirit, and irreversibly formed the trajectory of his descendents’ lives, together with Abungu’s. “The struggle left a really massive scar in my household,” he says.
Abungu heard this story numerous instances from his grandfather, who was Ogunde’s youthful brother. Transferring typically as a baby, his grandfather’s residence in western Kenya was his anchor, and the tales he was instructed have been the rudder that guided him in life. This specific story of Ogunde grew to become fantasy, after which legend, and has gripped Abungu since he was a small boy.
His great-uncle was plucked from the shores of Lake Victoria by British colonial directors to combat the Germans in World Battle I – throughout which he perished, together with tens of hundreds of different Africans. The household was by no means notified of his demise, instructed what occurred, or proven a grave at which they might mourn. They obtained solely deafening silence. And the questions that stuffed this void have haunted the household to at the present time.
However Abungu’s grandfather’s tales of Ogunde had a objective. “I got here to grasp that he was getting ready us. He didn’t need us to overlook. He needed us to seek out out,” he says. “And so when this opportunity got here, I’d been ready for that.”
The prospect Abungu is speaking about is his job – a really distinctive job that enables him to dig into the previous, uncover its hidden secrets and techniques, and maybe, in the future, clear up the thriller of Ogunde’s demise.
No seen hint
Abungu slams shut the driving force’s door of the silver Toyota Prado and appears on the steel gate in entrance of him. This appears an unlikely place for a burial floor. He’s within the metropolis of Nakuru, standing exterior a metalworking yard referred to as Jua Kali – a time period used for the casual sector actually that means “scorching solar” in Swahili. Accompanied by his two colleagues, Mercy Gakii and Rose Maina, he walks over the black-stained floor, previous flying sparks and burning torches, with the sharp scent of smouldering steel in his nostril. The casual welders increase their heads because the three uncommon guests move by, protruding like sore thumbs of their immaculate matching apparel.
The staff is in search of 17 graves of Africans who died in World Battle II. They, like different African servicemen, have been buried in so-called “native cemeteries” separate from the place Europeans have been laid to relaxation. A few of these have been later deserted, explains Abungu. Their names are commemorated on a collective memorial and their service data are recognized, however the location of their graves just isn’t. In response to info gleaned from his organisation’s archives, this cemetery is meant to be 100 yards (90m) southwest of the Muslim cemetery in Nakuru – so most definitely proper right here, the place the welders have arrange store. In the event that they have been buried right here, no seen hint stays. “It’s probably the graves are beneath,” Abungu says, trying across the yard. He pauses. “It feels unhealthy.”
Tall and lanky, with close-cropped hair and a slender face, Abungu has a critical manner that shortly offers method to a broad smile. He wears black-rimmed glasses that darken when he’s out within the subject in brilliant daylight, which is usually. Abungu is heritage supervisor on the Commonwealth Battle Graves Fee (CWGC) in Kenya. The London-based organisation takes care of the reminiscence of those that died for Nice Britain and the Commonwealth within the two World Wars and maintains hundreds of cemeteries all over the world, together with in Kenya and different African international locations. Regardless of typically being seen as European wars, each World Wars left deep scars in Africa.
In Phrase Battle I alone, in line with the CWGC, British forces employed round 50,000 African troopers and greater than a million African “carriers”, or porters who transported struggle supplies. Most of those participated within the East Africa marketing campaign, a collection of brutal and arduous battles towards German troops between 1914 and 1918 throughout the dense thickets, sprawling savannahs and impenetrable forests of what are actually Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to different international locations. The unforgiving terrain rendered different technique of transport impractical, making British (and German) troops rely closely on carriers to move provides and weapons. One British soldier had on common about 15 porters, says historian David Masika of the College of Nairobi. The circumstances have been extraordinarily harsh. Marches have been lengthy and arduous, by way of robust terrain, with porters carrying heavy masses in oppressive warmth. Their vitamin was sparse and ailments ravaged the troops.
Amid the chaos of struggle, in 1917, the CWGC was based by a Royal Constitution. The human price of World Battle I used to be at a scale by no means seen earlier than, and the fee was set as much as recognise that sacrifice. The founding rules of the organisation have been to commemorate every one who died for the Commonwealth in struggle by identify, in perpetuity, and to deal with all equally. However this promise was not stored.
The Nakuru North Cemetery, only some kilometres away from the welding yard, is an oasis of calm. Nestled amid a dilapidated public cemetery, the pristinely stored burial floor for World Battle I and II lifeless, managed by the CWGC, is made up of neat rows of sunshine gray headstones, all equal in form and dimension, in a mattress of gravel. Planted round it are agaves, yellow daisies and silver-grey dusty millers. The area is the embodiment of dignity and respect. However strolling alongside the rows of headstones, among the many names, not a single African one could be discovered. “Some [dead] are taken care of, whereas others are below the torches of Jua Kali,” notes Abungu solemnly.
“We all know that there are tens of hundreds who served and died in British service who should not commemorated in a method that was promised by the fee,” says George Hay, a historian on the CWGC. And most of those have been in East Africa. This was recognized to the organisation for many years, nevertheless it took an explosive documentary to air in the UK in 2019 for it to behave. A novel undertaking – the Non-Commemoration Programme – was launched by the CWGC in 2021 to rectify this historic injustice and create significant remembrance for the descendants of troopers and their communities at this time. It goals to do that by figuring out lacking names and burial grounds, reinstating uncared for graves and creating new types of commemoration. Hay and Abungu are a part of this undertaking. Three and a half years in, they now estimate that most definitely 88,000 East Africans died for Britain in World Battle I – and that nearly none have been commemorated by identify. In contrast, in World Battle II, greater than 10,000 folks served and died in East African forces, however all have been commemorated by identify, both listed on a collective memorial or with a gravestone.
Throughout World Battle I, some African troopers and carriers died within the subject and have been buried by their comrades, whereas the bulk handed away in army hospitals, Hay explains. The latter have been probably interred in what are actually civil burial grounds, typically with none markers. Some graves could have been marked with easy wood indicators, however these have been by no means formalised or correctly recorded by army or different authorities. It was solely after the struggle that the Imperial Battle Graves Fee, because the CWGC was then recognized, started the method of assuming accountability for graves, relocating stays to extra everlasting cemeteries and erecting headstones. Nevertheless, for the overwhelming majority of African struggle lifeless, this by no means occurred.
In stark distinction to locations like France the place the fee had direct entry to info on deaths, in colonies similar to Kenya it largely trusted colonial authorities and the army to offer the names of the struggle lifeless and areas of their graves. Whereas the organisation was generally conscious of burial websites, it was typically instructed that no data existed, Hay explains. His staff has since concluded that the fee too readily accepted this clarification. “It was by no means true … that the data weren’t there. They could not have been full, however from what we’ve seen, they did exist.”
The choices the fee made on the time have been “imbued by language and pondering [that] was racialised” and “imperial in its outlook”, says Hay. This shines by way of unmistakably in official correspondence on the time. In 1920, George Evans, who would quickly after change into the fee’s Deputy Director of Works in East Africa, wrote that “many of the Natives who’ve died are of a semi-savage nature” and that the “erection of particular person headstones would represent a waste of public cash”, because the CWGC notes in a report. For “these buried within the bush, as within the case of porters … some type of Monument characteristically depicting the Indian soldier, the African Askari and Porter” would suffice, he wrote. Such monuments have been erected in Nairobi, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, and don’t carry names.
Abungu’s great-uncle was most definitely amongst these casualties. In a method, the heritage supervisor has been looking for what occurred to Ogunde all his life.
Abungu has beloved historical past since he was a baby, a seed planted by his grandfather. “However it wasn’t a simple path,” he says. His determination to review historical past was not within the plans of his father, who most popular him to change into a physician. He selected info and communications expertise as a substitute after which entered the army. Afterwards, his brother George – a famend Kenyan archaeologist who would later change into director of the Nationwide Museums of Kenya – steered he be part of him on a dig on the Kenyan coast. This was a fork within the highway. And the brand new path led him to change into a historian and heritage supervisor.
However it was at all times greater than an curiosity prior to now that drove Abungu. He cared about its influence at this time. “How do you employ heritage as a useful resource for group improvement? … How do you translate this right into a significant, related useful resource for the communities?” he asks. These questions burned within him. So when, in the future, an electronic mail landed in his inbox a few job with the Non-Commemoration Programme, the celebrities appeared to align – the years of questioning about Ogunde, looking for his personal objective, questioning the function of heritage, all converged in that very second. He realised, “there’s a chance of getting Ogoyi Ogunde right here,” Abungu remembers. “That’s the one probability.”
Seeking burial grounds
With each arms firmly on the steering wheel – at exactly 9 and three o’clock – Abungu steers the automotive by way of visitors on the single-lane freeway that leads from Nakuru to Kisumu within the far west of Kenya. He drives with confidence and care, and virtually army precision. With an upright posture, he wears his uniform – khaki cargo trousers and a darkish blue shirt with the fee’s identify on it – like a badge of honour. Behind him sits his colleague, heritage supervisor Gakii. Her laptop computer is open on her lap, and he or she is watching a spreadsheet itemizing struggle veterans, their service numbers and years of obligation. “The psychological half is the race towards time,” Gakii says about their work. “The individuals who have this data are going so quick.” Abungu nods in settlement. “You realise the injustice and also you attempt to make their voice heard earlier than it’s too late.”
For nearly 4 years Abungu and his staff have been scouring the previous. Happening info dug up by Hay and colleagues within the CWGC’s archives in London, the Kenyans have been travelling throughout the nation in search of misplaced burial grounds. They journey a few times a month on subject journeys similar to this one to Nakuru and Kisumu. They communicate to locals who may bear in mind seeing graves or grave markings, spend hours strolling throughout fields below the burning solar, and talk about with communities what types of commemoration could be significant to them. At instances, they’ve referred to as in assist from the British military, which has offered ground-penetrating radar. In the meantime, others are combing by way of archives similar to these of the Kenya Defence Forces, looking for hitherto unknown names of Africans who died for Britain.
In the case of World Battle II, the staff is taking a look at completely different issues from these of World Battle I. All Africans who died in World Battle II have been commemorated by identify, both on a collective memorial or on headstones within the so-called “native cemeteries”. Nevertheless, within the Nineteen Fifties, a few of these graveyards have been deemed “unmaintainable” by colonial authorities and deserted, such because the one probably below the steel working yard in Nakuru, Abungu explains. Names from these graveyards have been then transferred to collective memorials. The staff is now looking for these lacking burial grounds to finally memorialise and honour these areas.
It’s gradual, painstaking and exhausting work. Every dialog opens up one other lead, one other clue as to the place a burial floor could possibly be hidden. How lengthy do you retain going earlier than you quit? “We’re so shut and but up to now,” says Maina, sighing, after yet one more assembly with an individual that didn’t result in a smoking gun. However discovering the placement of a gravesite is one factor – getting affirmation for it’s solely one other. As a result of digging up the earth, exhuming our bodies and even doing DNA checks just isn’t an possibility, the staff wants eyewitnesses who may bear in mind seeing the grave. And these are far and few between.
In Kisumu, a metropolis nestled on the shores of Lake Victoria, Abungu and his colleagues get fortunate. After a number of visits and numerous conversations, they got here throughout Jeremiah Otieno Sino. The 82-year-old is standing on an open subject, subsequent to a hospital, the place a gaggle of boys are enjoying soccer. He too used to play soccer right here, Sino explains, as a baby within the Nineteen Forties and Nineteen Fifties. He factors to the southern finish of the sphere the place a ramshackle vegetable backyard has been planted. “There have been headstones,” he says. He remembers graves of World Battle II troopers who had died on the close by hospital. That is what the staff wanted: affirmation of a “native cemetery” that had been deserted someday in the course of the colonial interval. Sino’s story is captured on digital camera. Abungu is happy.
It’s a small victory, however one as vital as another. As a result of for the staff, each identify counts, each grave deserves being chased. “The purpose of doing this work is to revisit that promise” – the promise of equal commemoration made by the fee at its founding – “and to try to ship on it,” says David McDonald, the pinnacle of the Non-Commemoration Programme.
To date, greater than 11,000 names of World Battle I servicemen not beforehand recorded have been uncovered in archives. Oral histories and first-hand accounts by World Battle II veterans have been recorded. The groups are narrowing down the areas of a number of misplaced gravesites. And dealing not solely in Kenya however in different international locations similar to South Africa, Sierra Leone, Egypt and India, the undertaking is striving in direction of its final aim: to commemorate those that have beforehand been forgotten in a way that’s befitting of the communities they got here from, and the instances. A brand new memorial was unveiled in Cape City in January and the fee is engaged on one other one in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown.
However inherent within the programme’s work is one inalienable reality. “We are able to by no means get all of the graves, all of the names,” says Gakii. “The work won’t ever be full. It’s countless.”
Abungu will proceed the work so long as he probably can, as a result of for him, it’s deeply private. “I’d do that job at no cost if I had numerous cash,” he jokes. With a grandfather who imprinted on him the significance of his heritage, and a really principled father, he feels a deep sense of obligation to all of the Kenyan households whose family members left for the wars and by no means got here again – who’ve felt the ache of not figuring out their destiny, like his household has. Abungu is aware of that he most definitely won’t ever find Ogunde’s grave or discover his identify on a listing in an archive. However he has accepted this. “I feel I discover him on daily basis,” he says. As a result of each success he has at work interprets to him personally.
“Each time we discover somebody, we discover him.”
