‘The British Army cannot keep ignoring the murder of our friend’

After more than a decade of the killing of Agnes and Wandeo, a 21 -year -old mother, in Kenya, by claiming by a British soldier, a Kenyan court issued an arrest warrant for a citizen in the United Kingdom. If there is a surrender, then this will be the first time that a British soldier or a former British soldier has been sent abroad to face a trial on charges of killing a civilian – a step that her friends welcomed.

On the night she disappeared on March 31, 2012, Agnes, her boyfriend, begged for childhood friends A and a friend, to go out with her.*

Agnes and their friend were new mothers, both of whom were 21 years old, both of whom wanted to give up some steam.

The friend B was eager to go out as well, and agreed to meet them in The Bar in Lions Court Hotel – located in the commercial area of ​​Nanyuki, the town of Souk in central Kenya, about 124 miles (200 km) north of Nairobi.

In that evening, the mother of the friend B agreed to monitor the five -month -old Ashneice daughter for small children’s sitting fees. With the stability of the care of children, Ashnes and his friend set out, making his first stop in a bar called Sherlock.

A friend A. “I remember that some were wearing clear clothes and some were wearing army clothes.”

The British army has a permanent training support base in Nanioca, and the white men, many of whom were soldiers, had a familiar presence. Local residents referred to them as Johnnies, a title that holds inappropriate connotations.

“They made me uncomfortable because I heard bad things about Mozongo’s men,” a friend remembers.

“Musongos does not treat us with the Kenyles well,” the friend B.

For young women, such as Ashnis, the dangers of engaging with these men often have been a confrontation against the struggle to meet their needs.

“When women are financially desperate, they will do almost anything to survive,” says friend. “I don’t think Agnes was a sexual worker. I never saw her. She was very poor.”

Her friends say that on a good day, Agnes will earn about 300 Kenny shillings – less than 1 pounds ($ 1.35). On a bad day there was nothing at all, and relied on the goodwill of her older sister.

Agnes has no financial support from her child’s father, and her friends say that she was constantly trying to earn money, and most of them were working in salons and beautifying people’s hair, sometimes turning into unconventional means.

One of the methods that the friend remembers, was simple: Ashnice will befriend a person who has been shown on her drink, then ask for a calm of the waiter to skip the drink and deliver money instead.

On the Cherlock’s bar that night, the friend was passed through Facebook when I noticed Ashnis in what seemed to be a tense exchange with a white man.

“When I approached her to ask her if she was fine, she told me that I would go to the Black Court as planned and that she will soon join.”

A friend B continued to the hotel, where the friend B and many others were already dancing. A crowd of white men was present.

Ashnis joined them shortly.

Her friends told that she was “filling” “she tried to take Mouzongo’s wallet, but the goalkeeper had entered. Her friends say it seemed to be solved.

The friend A. “She was kidding around.”

Almost midnight, leaving a friend of the house, leaving the friend B and Agnes and their friends dance.

“Mosongus was buying American drinks, and Ashnis was returning them to the bar for money,” Al -Siddiq added. The two started mixing with other friends. Soon after, the friend B says she saw Ashnis leaving the tape with a white men and assumed that they had reached an arrangement by mutual consent. Other reports say that Ashnis was seen leaving with two men.

The next morning, the girlfriend B went to the home of Ashnis and saw her heartfelt sister, who told her that Ashnis did not return. She rushed to her mother’s home, where she found a child of Ashnis still on her care.

By early evening when Ashnis is no longer yet, the friend B and another friend went to the Nanioca police station to report her missing, and return the child to the sister of Agnes.

For several days, Ashnis Friends searched for. In the Lions Court, one of the guard told them that there was a “big battle” in one of the hotel’s rooms this week and a broken window.

Nearly three months later, Ashnis’s body was discovered in the sewage tank near the hotel. I have been stabbed. The friend B and another friend went to the morgue to see the body of Ashnis.

“I felt terrified,” says the friend B. “I couldn’t imagine that something like this could happen.”

It will take years before the murder of Agnes and Wajru wore wider.

The Kenyan judge, Najri Thuku, concluded after an investigation in 2019 that Agnes was killed by one or two British soldiers. The Sunday Times newspaper revealed exclusively that the killing of Ashnis, claiming a British soldier, was known among the forces in Nenioki. The army reported that the soldier had taken it out by the army, but still lives freely in the United Kingdom.

“I think there are many men responsible for the death of Agnes,” says friend. “Many men know what happened, and many may cover it.”

The momentum was built again in 2024 Open Democracy stated that the British army failed to discipline the soldiers In exchange for paying the price of sex Although this behavior is explicitly prohibited in 2022After the allegations that included the UK forces in Kenya.

This prompted an internal investigation in August 2025, which revealed that some soldiers at the base were still participating in sex with women, and many of them were weak, eclipse or trafficking in sexual work.

In April this year, UK Defense Minister John Healy met the Agnes familyIn Kenya to offer his condolences and issue a statement saying that the British government “will continue to do everything we can to help the family secure the justice it deserves.”

On September 16, The Kenyan Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for a mawnidian British Agnis and Agero are suspected of killing.

If it is delivered, this will be the first time that a British soldier or a former British soldier has been sent to the trial of a civilian killing.

“He is a great welcome and a positive step towards the arc of justice.” “However, the battle has not yet been profitable, given the legal obstacles to delivery procedures, and we hope that the relevant government institutions in both countries will continue to cooperate to meet the ends of justice.”

The daughter of Ashnis, Esther Najuki, has created the GodueDME page in order to raise funds to support the family, travel to the United Kingdom and create more awareness of killing her aunt.

“We need to pay for financial security for the daughter of Agnes,” said Esther, adding that she is now a teenager.

Agnis’s friends agree that justice has been late for a long time.

“The British army cannot continue to ignore the killing of our friend,” says the friend. “We want justice for Jenses and her daughter.”

BBC asked the Ministry of Defense to comment.

*The British Broadcasting Corporation has changed the name of all the people listed as witnesses by the Kenyan Supreme Court