Tears and sadness engulfed the sitting of the Ad-Hoc-committee on the compensation of the victims of the 1998 bomb blast at the US embassy in Nairobi on Friday as victims pleaded for compensation.
The victims that include widows, orphans and survivors narrated before the committee chaired by Machakos Senator Agnes Kavindu on how they have lived a frustrated life after losing their bread winners in the terrorist attack that happened 25 years ago.
Safula Mwilu lost her husband during the blast. She was working as a manager at a local bank adjacent to the embassy when the terrorists attacked.
On the fateful day, she narrated that her husband was back in the office after suffering a stroke. Hopefully he had recovered from the ailment.
Mwilu had accompanied him as he returned to work but she left to go pick his clearance report from the hospital on the fateful day.
Little did she know that this was the last time she would see her husband. She found his body at City mortuary after a search.
"Most of us widows were not working. Our bread winners have gone. The kids were not going to school. We didn’t have any assistance. We have lived a frustrated life. That is why we are seeking compensation," Mwilu narrated.
Grace Njoroge’s father died in the blast. He worked as a driver to the late minister J.J Kamotho.
Before she narrates the last moments with her father, she pauses and breathes in and out and starts by saying ‘’It is such a disturbing tragedy to remember the loss of my father’’. Njoroge was 17 years old when the calamity fell on the family.
"I remember I polished his shoes on that fateful day before he left for work because I was at home after finishing my exams," Njoroge said.
"That morning I didn't know that it was the last time I would see him."
She explained how it has been tough for her and the family to survive having lost the only person they depended on.
"It was very tough having lost your father, the person who has been your bread winner and catered for everything. We could not even see his face because of how badly it was mutilated by the blast," Njoroge recalled.
Some of the survivors who appeared before the committee revealed that they still have particles of glasses in their bodies while others have to survive on medication.
Lilian Mulwa from Makueni County was pregnant when the blast occurred. She was working at the Co-operative House 12th floor and was due in three weeks time.
"Right now my son is 25 years old. He was born with a lot of bruises all over. He looked very weird to me because I wondered why he is not like other children so I had to massage to get back to the normal shape of a baby," Mulwa told the committee.
She said some of the women lost their wombs while others suffered shuttered wombs.
The committee that will also go to America, is scheduled to hold public hearings on August 22 before tabling a report before the Senate by September 21.
At least 213 Kenyans and 12 Americans were killed in the attack by the Al Qaeda terrorist 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, 1998.