Mark (not his real name) spoke to his girlfriend at about 2.47am on Friday, January 15, 2015, before sliding back into his sleeping bag and falling dead asleep. With him in the trenches was a corporal who kept guard as he slept. They expected to swap roles later. But it never came to pass. Barely an hour later, a huge blast set off what would be the worst military loss for Kenya since independence. Mark’s colleague was among the first to react to the blast. He raised his head to respond to the enemy. Before he could fire his first shot, an enemy bullet lodged into his chest, killing him instantly. As blood gushed out of his colleague’s lifeless body, Mark stepped out of his sleeping bag, concurrently taking aim. He brought down two enemies before jumping over the wire fence to make a miraculous escape. It was the longest half hour of close misses and deafening explosions and gunfire.
This is the first account of an El Adde survivor, as told to The Standard on Sunday. “I was in my sleeping bag. I had hardly slept that night. Before the attack, I had made some calls to a friend and that is how I remember the time,” Mark recalls. “I watched my colleague’s body roll into the trench. He had gone up first to see what was going on. They must have thought that he was the only one in the trench. His death hit me hard. I understood at once that I needed to summon everything I could put into the fight if I was going to survive.” Mark told us. The situation was so fierce that continued engagement with the enemy was not an option. He had to preserve his life. Later, he would face concerns by the KDF that together with other survivors, he should be punished “for abandoning their camp at the hour of need.”
The soldier, who is now a former shell of himself, says the nightmare for about 280 KDF started from the gate when a swarm of insurgents descended on them. “There were about 10 men at the gate. It was impossible to fight them, with my friend already taken. You would shoot one and there are 20 guns shooting back at you. It was horrific. I could not go back. They came to kill and they did,” he recalls. He estimates that at least 210 died, or were captured in the early morning attack, the worst military loss for Kenya. Official reports have placed the dead at 141. However survivors’ accounts have called this number into doubt. Mark suggests that it is highly probable that grieving families may have buried bodies that did not belong to their kin, following the hurried DNA-testing to identify the badly damaged corpses. He gave a rare peak into the deadly battle one year later, where only eight survivors from the group of 180 soldiers from the Eldoret-based 9th Rifle Battalion’s D Company escaped without injuries. Another 15 of these heroes escaped with injuries of varying degrees. Mark’s escape was possible because he and another soldier covered for each other, before jumping over the fence and beginning a three-day trek, without an ounce of sleep and a drop of water.
Read more at: [U]https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000229911/the-untold-story-of-kdf-massaccre-in-el-adde[/U]
sissy soldiers, no retreat no surrender should be the motto of every soldier
[SIZE=5]Shenzi una dhani hii ni PS ama movie ya chuck norris , the camp was badly designed no watchtower and surrounded by dense vegetation should at least had a dry moat around it to stop the initial Suicide bomber in a car ! [/SIZE]
What happened to those captured? Haven’t heard a word from al saitan since that day
US embassy walitoa terror warning on Friday
DT has questioned the legitimacy of alshabaab war funding by usa government and yet the war has been going on for a decade without winning,.Now if they pull out the logistic, armory and surveillance support ,then we are on our own guys.Tutalia kwa choo tukiuwawa
Now for those Kenyan guys who were supporting DT win,I have one word;the cockrel has come home to crow. I’m sure you guys have relatives in here in kenya who depend on funding from usa to have subsidized HIV drugs. You heard what he said about these programs?He is going to scrap them off because America has enough problems too. Tereng tereng.
cc @Acoustic , @mouraythee
It’s such soldiers, and there were many of them, who abandoned their positions, arms and ammo and in the process left the courageous soldiers still fighting from the trenches thoroughly outnumbered and at the brutal hands of the shabaab. Remember there was the Hosingo battle before this where the enemy was like 3times the elade one. The commander threatened to shoot dead anyone who thought of abandoning the position and it worked. Over 400 terrorists were felled that the somali human rights group was crying foul
Their commander a major was felled
Why do we never hear of alshabaab being killed or loosing territory since we joined AU ?
I wonder why the el adde soldiers never got any air support from our own ,why wait for AU to give air support , at least they should have killed as many of them when the camp was overrun,
even hours after the information about attack got out in social media guys were being slaughtered yet no support was given until days later after the terrorist were long gone.
you sound like you are privy to what went down…but…
military battles si sinema ya commando…
Hata kwa game kuna points you have to retreat
I saw the vid on el added and it was terrible , an embarrassment really.
Those guys were heavily outnumbered but they held the terrorists for hours
It could have been a different situation if they could have gotten some sort of air support
From what i saw in the vid I’m sure guys even ran out of ammunition and were unable to get more due to the constant firing from technical pickups
Have watched the attack video? Go and watch it before talking crap. KDF walipatikana off guard. After the 1st blast ungeona the number of bullets that came flying in hauengebonga mob. Hapo hata kama wewe ni Rambo sylvester stallone the only solution was to retreat
Hujaona hiyo attack on el adde? enda pale live leaks. A whole 23mins and part two has a number of captured soldiers, some with serious injuries. If I remember well, kuna mwenye matumbo imehang nje na mwenye jicho pia iko nje. And they are alive.
wewe shagzmodo its not tereng tereng
it is ‘teren teren’
ulikuja nairobi badala ya kukaa ufunzwe ukajitupa mbele na kiereere
In any combat situation, holding ground is more defensive than retreating. A good example are the secret soldiers of Beghazi
video by who? made for what purpose? are you now helping the authors to demoralise our soldiers like the video was intended?..
do not allow yourself to be someones puppet…
this is beneath your level, my friend.
Holding ground, my foot. One thing u should understand is that KDF are not as experienced as US marines and also our weapons can not be compared with Navy seal weapons.
Please go watch the el adde video before commenting
That’s why as a soldier you must die fighting,never let your enemy to capture you alive,make use of fatigue technics that are taught in army.