A celebrated feminine freedom fighter in Kenya’s bloody independence wrestle in opposition to British colonial rule died on Tuesday 5 September 2023, with the nation’s president main the tributes.
Muthoni Kirima, one of many few girls to actively struggle within the Mau Mau rebellion within the Fifties, was declared useless on arrival at a Nairobi hospital after growing well being issues, her household stated.
ALSO READ: Kenya’s third president Mwai Kibaki useless at 90
Kenyan President Ruto despatched condolences
The media studies variously put her age at 91 or 92. “Deeply saddened by the passing of Area Marshal Muthoni Kirima, a strong determine of broad affect who fought for our freedom,” Kenyan President William Ruto stated.
“We honour her heroic contribution to the liberty and improvement of our nation,” stated Ruto, who was pictured hugging Kirima at a gathering within the foothills of Mount Kenya final month.
ALSO READ: Former Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki leaves blended legacy
The fighter was alongside Dedan Kimathi
Kirima fought alongside resistance chief Dedan Kimathi and was reportedly the one girl to have attained the Mau Mau rank of area marshal. She had suffered a bullet wound in her chest in the course of the rebellion in 1952, media studies stated.
In Might, Kimathi’s widow Mukami Kimathi, who was additionally in her 90s, died in a Nairobi hospital, lauded by Ruto as a “legendary fighter”.
ALSO READ: Kenya votes for subsequent president in a fiercely-contested race
Her husband was executed half a century in the past by the colonial authorities, prompting her later to attraction to the Kenyan authorities to exhume his physique so he may very well be given a state funeral.
Mau Mau suffered horrific abuse
However successive governments tried and didn’t find his stays. The Mau Mau suffered horrific abuses below the colonial regime for collaborating in one of many British Empire’s bloodiest insurgencies.
ALSO READ: Kenya elections: Prayers for peace as presidential race tightens
In 2015, 1000’s of Mau Mau veterans attended the disclosing in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, of a British-funded memorial to the 1000’s killed, tortured and jailed within the insurrection, in a uncommon instance of former rulers commemorating a colonial rebellion.
str-txw/pvh© Agence France-Presse
