The UK government has agreed to pay compensation to thousands of Kenyan people who were affected by the fire caused by a British military training exercise four years ago.
The out-off-court colony follows a long legal battle in which 7,723 contenders said that they had lost property and the cracks of Kenya have faced health complications due to the 2021 fire in Loldiga Conservancy in the Valley.
A spokesman for the British High Commission in Nairobi said the fire was “extremely regrettable” and Britain dedicated “a lot of time, efforts and resources” to resolve the claims.
The British government has not confirmed how much was paid, but in the case the lawyer told the BBC that it was £ 2.9 million.
Kevin Kubai, despite the complaints of his customers, called it “best possible results” that the amount he received was too small to compensate for their losses.
He said the option “would be able to prove these cases on a case-case analysis to continue litigation for another period of about seven years”, which would be difficult because a lot of evidences were lost after four years.
Mr. Kubai admitted that his customers did not have medical records supporting their claims of health damage due to smoking from loldiga fire, and they were also exposed for smoking as they used firewood for cooking.
The UK Ministry said in 2022 that the possibility of fire was due to a camp stove, which was knocked during the training exercise at the conjunctive. It was found that about 7,000 acres of private land was damaged, but no community land was directly affected.
Legal action argued that smoke caused environmental damage to surrounding communities, and destruction of property due to sealing wild animals.
The British government has helped the conservancy with the restoration of the burnt area and military exercises are still there.
Loldiga Conservancy – About 49,000 acres of hill Bushland – Lakipia Plateau with the backdrop of snow -covered Mount Kenya, where hundreds of thousands of acres of land were seized by the British during the colonial era, leading to land disputes.
It is just 70 km (45 mi) from Leva Conservancy, where Prince of Wales proposed to Kate Middleton in November 2010.
A few kilometers in the south, the newlyfriended new barrack, a £ 70 million feature that is part of the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk).
It hosts thousands of British soldiers every year for large -scale practice in places such as Loldiga, which provides ideal conditions for rigorous environmental training.
Batuk annually contributes millions of pounds to the Kenyan economy.
But the controversy over the behavior of some soldiers over the years has attracted the media’s attention, including the allegations of deadly hits, and sexual abuse of Kenyan women.
