When Noldonyo Piro and her older sister were growing up, they were inseparable.
asserted
they → grow → ?
Just a year apart, Piro, then about 15, and Mantoi Lekoloi Kaunda, 16, spent most days grazing the family’s herd of about 250 goats and sheep across the vast plains that stretch for miles around their home in northern Kenya.
asserted
that → spend → Kenya
“We lived a very simple life,” Piro, now in her 40s, recalls, sitting outside her small home made of tin sheets and sticks, topped with a patchwork roof of plastic bags in Archer’s Post, a rural settlement in Samburu County.
asserted
Piro → live → County
“I remember we used to stand some distance away from each other, and then one of us would start singing, and the other would answer.
asserted
other → remember → us
We loved to play with each other and tell stories.”
asserted
We → love → stories
As teenagers in the mid-1990s, their biggest fears involved the wildlife roaming the area — lions, cheetahs and elephants.
asserted
fears → involve → area
The sisters had no reason to fear the British soldiers who had long trained on the outskirts of Archer’s Post.
asserted
who → have → Post
In fact, neither had ever seen a white man before — until, on one afternoon, everything changed.
asserted
everything → see → afternoon
Piro and Mantoi, who was about six months pregnant, were out herding livestock when Piro saw white soldiers approaching from behind.
asserted
soldiers → herd → livestock
“I felt scared and started running,” she tells Al Jazeera, staring at the thickets across the arid landscape.
asserted
she → feel → landscape
“One of them chased me and hit me on the back of my head.”
asserted
One → chase → head
“I fell down, and the soldier stood on my arm until it snapped and broke.”
asserted
it → fall → arm
She holds up the arm, still visibly indented where the bone broke.
asserted
bone → hold → arm
Piro says the soldier then raped her until she passed out.
asserted
she → say → her
When she regained consciousness, she was covered in blood.
asserted
she → regain → blood
Nearby, her sister Mantoi lay with her eyes closed, lifeless.
asserted
eyes → lie → ?
Piro staggered home.
asserted
Piro → stagger → ?
“She was just shouting ‘problem, problem,’ and I could see she was having trouble walking,” her father, the late Kaunda Lekoloi, later told ITV.
uncertain
father → shout → ITV
“She said the white men had attacked them.”
asserted
men → say → them
He went out to search for Mantoi.
asserted
He → go → Mantoi
“I found Mantoi covered in blood.
asserted
Mantoi → find → blood
I could see that she was dead.
uncertain
she → see → ?
He carried his daughter’s body home on a donkey and buried her the next morning.
asserted
He → carry → her
“There was no one to tell,” Piro says.
asserted
Piro → be → ?
No police post was within reach, and for a Samburu pastoralist in the 1990s, reporting an attack by men in foreign uniforms was unlikely to lead anywhere.
asserted
reporting → report → uniforms
For years the family lived with the horror in silence, only whispered from household to household.
asserted
family → live → household
“After that day, I became more scared of white men than I was of lions,” Piro says, her eyes filling with tears.
asserted
eyes → become → tears
“Even now, when I think about what happened, it makes me sick to my stomach.”
asserted
me → think → stomach
No one has ever been charged over Mantoi’s alleged murder.
asserted
one → charge → murder
Her case is among decades of allegations against soldiers from the British Army Training Unit Kenya, or BATUK, that include rape, murder, abandoned children fathered by soldiers, deaths and severe injuries from unexploded ordnance, environmental destruction and fatal vehicle collisions.
asserted
that → include → ordnance
The military arrangement dates back to a 1964 defence agreement, signed months after Kenya’s independence, that allowed United Kingdom forces to keep training on Kenyan soil.
asserted
forces → date → soil
Six decades later, BATUK remains embedded in northern Kenya, training around 10,000 soldiers a year in Laikipia and Samburu.
asserted
BATUK → embed → Laikipia
There has been no known case in which British personnel accused in the cases documented by Kenyan communities and investigators have faced prosecution in Kenya.
asserted
personnel → know → Kenya
The UK has repeatedly invoked sovereign immunity — the principle that one state cannot be sued in another’s courts — a claim that went untested for decades, keeping cases from reaching Kenyan judges.
uncertain
that → invoke → judges
Now, finally, that power imbalance is being challenged.
asserted
imbalance → challenge → ?
Unearthed, then buried again
Mantoi’s case might have stayed buried had hundreds of women from the Maasai and Samburu tribes not come forward in 2003, alleging decades of rape by British soldiers and suing for negligence under UK law, arguing commanders had known of issues since 1977 and failed to act.
uncertain
commanders → unearth → 1977
The Royal Military Police launched Operation Tasker in March 2003 to investigate the allegations.
asserted
Police → launch → allegations
By October 2004, it had logged more than 2,000 allegations of rape and sexual violence involving British soldiers over the preceding four decades.
asserted
it → log → decades
Kenya’s Criminal Investigation Department handled Mantoi’s case, and her father allowed her body to be exhumed — a profound cultural taboo in Samburu tradition.
asserted
body → handle → tradition
The pathologist told ITV at the time that the rib fractures indicated that considerable force was sustained to her back, suggesting a blow from a boot.
asserted
force → tell → boot
…and 210 more, not listed.
The Aporia
