More than 5,000 survivors of the 1998 bomb blast in Kenya on Saturday asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to push for their compensation when US President Barrack Obama visits Kenya in June this year.
The victims who gathered at the August 7th Memorial Park on Saturday afternoon (pictured above praying) complained that the US had discriminated Kenyans affected in the attack claiming that American survivors had already been compensated.
“We appeal to the US government through President Barrack Obama to compensate the victims as they compensated the buildings, US citizens and their employees. They should consider their Kenyan brothers and sisters. After all human rights and democracy should prevail,” the survivors urged through 7th August, 1998 Bomb Blast Victims Association Chairman George Njoroge.
According to the survivors, it was unfair treatment to compensate some of them and then leave out others.
In their view, all citizens affected during the terrorist attack should be accorded the same treatment.
“The American Government which is a global leader of democracy, it should see to it that justice is accorded equally,” he explained.
The survivors complained that despite 17 years having passed, the two governments have not compensated the survivors and families of the victims who died in the attack.
“The American congress in October 2007 passed a bill to compensate the US citizens and their employees without putting into consideration the ordinary Kenyans who died and were injured. We feel that such discrimination is totally unacceptable,” they argued.
Over 200 people perished in the August 7th 1998 bombing after Kenya was hit by terrorists who were targeting the US Embassy housed near Cooperative House at the time.
Source: Capital News
