This archive report was first published on 9 September 2021.
Laikipia, a region in central Kenya, has been plagued by violence, with ten lives lost in recent skirmishes. The British High Commissioner to Kenya, Jane Marriott, has denied allegations that British Army weapons are being used by bandits in the area.
Marriott made the statement in response to claims by Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya, who suggested that the bandits were armed with M16 rifles, commonly used by foreign forces training in the area.
Britain's British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) trains up to 10,000 troops in Kenya every year at the Nyati Barracks in Nanyuki, Laikipia County. Marriott claimed that the units exercising with BATUK do not use M16 rifles and that the organization conducts daily and weekly checks to ensure that all weapons are accounted for.
‘We are certain there are no BATUK weapons circulating in Kenya. We do a 100% daily quantity check, and a 100% weekly check by individual serial number, and none are missing. Units exercising with BATUK do not use M16 rifles,’ Marriott said in a tweet on September 9, 2021.
However, Natembeya later recanted his statement, suggesting that the M16 rifles might have been smuggled into Kenya from war-torn areas such as South Sudan and Northern Uganda.
The M16 rifle is a powerful weapon capable of shooting over 3.5 kilometers and releasing 60 rounds of ammunition within a minute.
