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

More than a decade after Aggnes Wanjiru, a 21 -year -old mother in Kenya, was killed by a British soldier, a Kenya court issued an arrest warrant for the British citizen. If there is a refund, for the first time, a portion or a former British military civilian is sent abroad for trial for the murder – a move to welcome your friends.

Agnes the night of his disappearance on March 31, 2012, begged for his childhood friend A and Friend B to come out with him.*

Agnes and Friend A were both 21 years old, new mothers, both of them wanted to give up a little vapor.

The friend B was also enthusiastic to go out, and they agreed to meet them at the bar in Lions Court Hotel in the business area of ​​Nanyuki, a Sunday town in the center of Kenya, about 124 miles (200km) of Nairobi.

That evening, friend B’s mother agrees to watch Agnes’s five -month -old daughter for a small babysitter fee. When the child care settled, Agnes and Friend went on a road and made his first stop at a bar called Sherlock’s Sherlock’s.

“There were too many banana (white) men there,” says Friend A. “I remember some of them are in simple clothes, some of them are in army clothes.”

The British Army has a permanent education support base in Nanyuki, and white men, many of which were soldiers, were a familiar entity. The locals called them Johnnies, a f in the name of unpleasant associations.

“They bothered me because I’ve heard bad things about the men of the banana,” friend remembers.

“Bazaar does not treat us well for Kenya women,” Friend B. adds, “Johnnies, especially they treat us badly. They disrespect us.”

For young women like AGNES, the risks of interacting with these men were usually weighed against the struggle to end.

“When women are financially desperate, they will do almost anything to survive,” Friend A says Friend A. “I don’t believe that Agnes is a sex worker. I have never seen it. He was very poor.”

His friends say that on a good day, Agnes will win about 300 Kenya shillings – less than £ 1 ($ 1.35). There was nothing in a bad day and relying on the goodwill of his loving sister.

Agnes did not have any financial support from his father’s father, and his friends said that he was constantly trying to make money, that he was mostly working in the halls, and that people were wearing their hair and sometimes turned into more unusual vehicles.

A method, friendship was simple to remember: Agnes would become friends with someone who offers him to buy a drink, then quietly ask the bartender to jump the drink and give him the money instead.

Sherlock was shifting on Facebook when he noticed what A Friend was like a tense change with a white man in Sherlock’s bar that night.

“When I approached him to ask him if he was good, he told me to go to the Lions court as planned and join me in a short time.”

Friend B and others have already danced the hotel. There was a crowd of white men.

Agnes joined them a little later.

He told his friends that he was trying to get a wallet of a Banana, but a bouncer intervened. His friends seem to have been solved. And his friends, Agnes looked comfortable.

“He was in the high spirit,” says Friend A. “He was kidding around.”

Around midnight, he went to the left for a friend B and Agnes and his friends dancing.

“Banana was taking us a drink, and Agnes was returning to the bar in exchange for money.” The two began to mix with other friends. Shortly thereafter, Briend B said that Agnes had seen that he had left the bar with one of the white men and that they had come to a consent -based arrangement. Other reports say that Agnes saw that he was separated with two men.

The next morning, he went to his friend Agnes’s house and saw his worried sister who said that Agnes had not returned. He ran to his own mother’s house, whom Agnes still found her baby in care.

In the early hours of the evening, when Agnes still did not come back, B and another friend went to the Nanyuki Police Station to report the losses and returned her baby to Aggnes’s sister.

For days, Agnes’ friends called him. A guard at Lions Court said that one of the hotel rooms that weekend was a “big fight” and a window was broken.

About three months later, Agnes’s body was discovered in a septic tank near the hotel. Stabbed. Friend B and another friend went to the morgue to see the body of Agnes.

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

It would take years for Agnes Wanjiru’s murder to attract a wider attention.

Kenya Judge Nji Thuku concluded that after an investigation in 2019, Agnes was killed by one or two British soldiers. Sunday Times announced that the murder of Agnes, allegedly allegedly by one British soldier, was well known among the troops in Nanyuki.. The publication reported that the soldier was shot by the army, but continued to live freely in England.

Orum I believe there are many men responsible for the death of Agnes, Friend says Friend. “Many men know what happened, and many have covered it.”

Momentum recurred in 2024 Open democracy reported that the British army could not discipline the soldiers To pay for sex Although such behavior was clearly banned in 2022Following the allegations containing England troops in Kenya.

This caused an internal investigation in August 2025, which showed that some soldiers on the base still had operational sex with women who are still vulnerable, challenging or fleeing sex work.

In April this year, British Defense Secretary John Healey met Agnes’s familyTo make a statement in Kenya to present condolences and say that the British government will “continue to do everything we can to help the family secure the justice they deserve”.

On September 16, A Kenya Supreme Court issued an arrest order for the British citizen He is suspected of killing Agnes Wanjiru.

If it is returned, an old British soldier is sent to abroad for the first time or an old British soldier for the murder of a civilian.

At the African Corrective and Preventive Action Center, lawyer Kelvin Kubai says, “It is a positive step towards the belt of justice,” he says. “However, given the legal obstacles of the return transactions, the war has not yet been won and we hope that both states will continue to cooperate to meet the end of justice.”

Esther Njoki, the nephew of Agnes, created a Gofundme page to support the family, travel to England and raise more awareness about the murder of his aunt.

Oğ We must push financial security for Agnes’s daughter, Est says Esther, now he added that he is a young man.

And Agnes’ friends acknowledge that justice has been postponed for a long time.

“The British army cannot ignore the murder of our friend,” says A. “We want justice for Agnes and her daughter.”

BBC asked the Ministry of Defense.

*BBC changed the name of all people listed as witnesses by the Kenya Supreme Court