Elders from the Nandi community in Kenya are making a fresh request for the UK to give back Koitalel arap Samoei’s skull.
He was a chief, as well as a spiritual and military leader, whom the British killed in 1905.
This new request is happening shortly before King Charles III’s visit to Kenya on October 31.
Samoei fought fiercely against the colonialists but was killed by a British soldier named Colonel Richard Meinertzehagen.
He tricked Samoei and other Nandi leaders into attending a meeting that was supposed to bring peace.
According to Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, the elders are also asking for their stolen cultural items to be returned and want compensation for the terrible things that happened to their community during colonial rule, like murders, detentions, and being forced out of their land.
It is believed that Samoei’s skull is kept in a museum in the UK.
Nandi elders have asked Britain many times to return his remains.
“We are appealing to King Charles, we need to get that skull to be brought back to Nandi for honorable burial,” said David Samoei, who is a descendant of Koitalel arap Samoei, in an interview with Kenya’s KTN News TV channel earlier this year.
