Nairobi – Dozens of Kenyans demonstrated in the capital on Wednesday to demand direct US compensation for victims of the 1998 embassy bombing in Nairobi.
The protest was held just over two weeks before US President Barack Obama is due in Kenya, his father’s birthplace.
“A good number of us have passed on since then because of the heavy medical expenses they could not be able to incur,” said Eliud Mulama, chairman of the Kenyan Victims of Terrorism Organisation.
He called on the United States “to make an announcement about compensation” before or during Obama’s visit.
A letter delivered to the US embassy in Nairobi said compensation “will help bring closure and healing to so many who have suffered for so long because they stood with America.”
The US missions in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were hit by near simultaneous car bombings on August 7, 1998.
The twin bombings killed a total of 224 people and injured some 5,000 — almost all of them Kenyans and Tanzanians.
Washington has said it has already spent tens of millions of dollars in medical treatment, school fees, counselling, and reconstruction services for the thousands of Kenyan and Tanzanian victims.
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