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Kenya to sell Tsavo's World War battlefield as package

Tuesday June 19 2018
tsavo

James Willson, the Author of "Guerrillas of Tsavo", stands besides one of the structures at Maktau cemetery as he takes a battery of journalists through the events that unfolded during the First World War in East Africa between 1914- 1918, on August 1, 2014. The country is set to use the First World War battlefield as a specialised package to attract tourists. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT

By BUSINESS DAILY

Kenya's Tsavo National Park is set to use the First World War battlefield as a specialised package to attract tourists.

The package will include touring war zones at Mwashoti Hill, southern Kenya, where British forces had established their fort and cemeteries for Germans and British soldiers.

Tourists will also visit the Voi-Taveta railway, which the Britons built to fight the German soldiers at Salaita Hill and a building in Taveta where the first shot was fired to at the start of the First World War.

Kenya is more known for beach and bush safaris where domestic and international tourists visit parks and the Coast.

The First World War, which started in 1918 mainly involved German and British forces. It resulted in deaths of at least two million Africans. The war was the longest in East Africa and mostly took place inside the expansive Tsavo National Park.

Despite the evident scars of the battle, Africans who died fighting the war are rarely remembered. Both sides used Africans involved in the war as porters carrying food, ammunition and other provisions for minimal or no pay.

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At the heart of Tsavo West National Park, the Sarova hotel has put up a monument to honour African soldiers who lost their lives during the war.

Chairperson of hoteliers in Tsavo and Amboseli Mr Willie Mwadilo said the monument is one of the main attractions in the package.

“So many African soldiers died during the war but are not remembered.” he said.

“The solders do not have graveyards contrary to the whites who were buried in different areas in the county,” he added.

He said more needs to be done to remember the African solders.

The war affected Taita Taveta residents who were forced to be involved in a war that was not theirs.

During the war, some villages were destroyed which resulted to severe famines.

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