Survivors and families of Kenyans who died in the 1998 terrorist attack on the US embassy in Nairobi can now hope for compensation after senators ignited the push to have them paid.
The lawmakers are set to establish a nine-member committee to push the US and Kenyan governments to pay the victims of the bombings.
“The Senate resolves to establish an Ad Hoc committee to engage the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to advance friendship and cooperation between the US and Kenya,” Machakos Senator Agnes Kavindu said.
The engagement, Kavindu in a motion set to be approved by the house, will be supporting the eligibility of Kenyan and American victims and their personal representatives, surviving spouses and next of kin in the Victim Compensation Fund.
This is pursuant to the Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act that provides for compensation of such victims.
The committee will also coordinate with the Ministry of Health to explore subsidised medical treatment for the surviving victims of the bomb blast.
At least 213 Kenyans and 12 Americans were killed in the attack by the Al Qaeda tourists group targeting the US embassy.
More than 5,000 people were seriously injured in the bloody bomb blast that greeted Kenya’s capital on August 7, 1988.
Debating the motion, the senators lamented that while the survivors and families of US citizens have been compensated under the Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act, Kenya is yet to be paid, 25 years later.
“The US Government has since compensated some of the victims and families of US citizens, leaving the families of Kenyan citizens and certain other victims uncompensated,” Kavindu said.
While terming the events of August 7, 1988, as terrible, Makueni Senator Dan Maanzo regretted that Kenyans are yet to be compensated even after the US established a fund to compensate all those who suffered as a result.
“This was an attack on the American Government. Kenya became collateral damage. Therefore, where such activities happen, it is only fair they come up with this fund and compensate victims as the American Government,” Maanzo said.
Maanzo said that Parliament, through the committee will, lobby their US counterpart to actualise the law that seeks to compensate the victims.
“What is left for this fund to be actualised, is a law to be passed in the American Houses; the Senate and the Congress. For this to happen, we have to lobby our colleagues in the US so that they expedite the passing of this law to actualise this fund,” he said.
Maanzo and Kavindu are among the nine senators picked to sit in the committee.
Others are Alexander Mundigi (Embu), Beatrice Ogolla (nominated), Johannes Mwaruma (Taita Taveta), Mohamed Chute (Marsabit), Jackson Mandago Uasin Gishu), William Cheptumo (Baringo) and Peris Tobiko (nominated).
Senator Mundigi said that it was embarrassing that 25 years after the attack, Kenyans who were injured, lost loved ones and jobs are yet to be compensated.
“It is embarrassing that all these people have been abandoned and are now paupers who cannot educate their children and do any other thing,” Mundigi said.
“The Americans must look at ways of compensating these victims,” he added