Day desert in north-eastern Kenya was drenched in Somali blood: Revisiting the 1984 Wagalla Massacre story the state wants to bury in ‘second grave’
In February 1984, in Wajir, more than 5,000 Somali Kenyan men were gathered at Wagalla Airstrip during a security operation. What followed became one of the darkest episodes in Kenya’s post-independence history. For years, the truth was disputed, minimised and buried beneath official explanations. Later investigations, survivor testimonies and the work of Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission brought the massacre back into nation’s human rights and political discourse.
