Lari Massacre
Part of Mau Mau Uprising
Lari is located in Kenya
Lari
Lari
Lari (Kenya)
Operational scopeTerrorist attack
Location
Lari, Kenya Colony
Planned byMau Mau Leadership
TargetKikuyu Home Guard
Date26 March 1953
Executed byMau Mau
Casualties74 killed[1][2][3] 50 wounded

The Lari massacre was an incident during the Mau Mau Uprising in which the Mau Mau massacred approximately 74 people, including some members of the loyalist Home Guard, but mostly their families: women, children and elderly relatives.[4] Those murdered included prominent local loyalist Luka Kangara.[1][2][5][6] A total of 309 rebels were prosecuted for the massacre, of which 136 were convicted. Seventy-one of those convicted were executed by hanging.[7]

The militants herded men, women and children into huts and set fire to them, hacking down with machetes anyone who attempted escape, before throwing them back into the burning huts. The attack at Lari was so extreme that "African policemen who saw the bodies of the victims ... were physically sick and said 'These people are animals. If I see one now I shall shoot with the greatest eagerness'", and it "even shocked many Mau Mau supporters, some of whom would subsequently try to excuse the attack as 'a mistake'."[8][9][4] The colonial government used the attack as propaganda and showed the massacre to journalists.[1] The massacre prompted retaliatory attacks.[10] 400 Mau Mau rebels were reputedly killed by colonial troops, including the King's African Rifles, in revenge.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Elkins, Caroline (2005). Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. New York City: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-805-07653-0. US edition
  2. ^ a b "Mau Mau bands massacre 200". The Argus. Melbourne: National Library of Australia. 28 March 1953. p. 1. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  3. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 132.
  4. ^ a b Anderson 2005, p. 127.
  5. ^ "Hundreds Die In Mau Mau Temorism's Gravest Outbreak". The Canberra Times. National Library of Australia. 28 March 1953. p. 1. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  6. ^ "Police Superintendent Ambushed Armed Mau Mau Terrorists Strike Again In Kenya". The Sunday Herald. Sydney: National Library of Australia. 29 March 1953. p. 3. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  7. ^ "Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire" (PDF). p. 175.
  8. ^ Anderson 2005, pp. 119–180.
  9. ^ French 2011, p. 72.
  10. ^ "The Night Of Long Knives: Slain Colonial Chief's Widows Recall Lari Massacre" by Njenga Gicheha The Star, March 25, 2011, accessed 9 November 2013

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