Even The Sun Wept But Justice Slept Forever In Wagalla

A betrayal baked in lies served cold to the dead as the world stared in deafening silence

By: Midmark Onsongo

Worth Noting:

• History books call it “an operation.” But what operation silences the wails of mothers who never found their sons? What strategy involves locking men in open air under the blistering sun without water, food, or shade? Survivors recounted tales too horrific for nightmares: beatings so savage they left backs twisted like broken branches, throats parched until death felt merciful, and bullets raining down like cursed blessings. The sound of gunfire, as unforgiving as thunder, punctuated the screams, creating a melody of misery etched into the memories of those who lived to tell the tale.
• And where were our leaders? Daniel arap Moi, the president whose regime danced on the graves of the voiceless, played puppeteer as lives unraveled.

Let me ask you this: when the sun sets on history’s darkest chapters, does it take the truth with it? Wagalla was not just a massacre; it was a symphony of silence orchestrated by a government too drunk on its own power to hear the screams of its citizens. Picture this: February 10, 1984. A quiet airstrip in Wajir transformed into a slaughterhouse under the watchful eyes of a nation’s defenders. Somali men—fathers, sons, brothers—rounded up like cattle, stripped of dignity, and penned into a sun-baked hell. By the time the dust settled, the numbers weren’t merely statistics; they were erased lives. Five hundred? Five thousand? Does it matter when a single bullet speaks louder than a thousand screams?

Imagine the soldiers—Kenyan Defence Forces, the so-called protectors—descending on the Degodia clan under the guise of restoring order. Did they wear shame like a uniform as they forced these men to the airstrip? Major General Mahmoud Mohamed, the very man born of Wajir soil, turned into a specter of betrayal. Was it irony or poetic injustice that a son of the soil became an executioner by association? Under his watch, orders flowed like blood, leaving the barren Wajir airstrip painted in crimson—a testament to the failure of humanity.

History books call it “an operation.” But what operation silences the wails of mothers who never found their sons? What strategy involves locking men in open air under the blistering sun without water, food, or shade? Survivors recounted tales too horrific for nightmares: beatings so savage they left backs twisted like broken branches, throats parched until death felt merciful, and bullets raining down like cursed blessings. The sound of gunfire, as unforgiving as thunder, punctuated the screams, creating a melody of misery etched into the memories of those who lived to tell the tale.

And where were our leaders? Daniel arap Moi, the president whose regime danced on the graves of the voiceless, played puppeteer as lives unraveled. Security Minister Justus Ole Tipis echoed silence louder than the cries of the dying. The Wagalla airstrip wasn’t just soaked in blood; it was buried under layers of lies. Government officials scrambled to rewrite the narrative, claiming “only fifty died,” as though reducing the death toll could sanitize their sin. Fifty? Even the lies insulted intelligence. How does one conceal a massacre? By burying bodies in mass graves so deep they tried to bury the truth with them.

And yet, the truth has a habit of clawing its way to the surface. Survivors, those ghosts walking among us, whispered their stories into the ears of journalists bold enough to listen. Names like Fatuma Abdullahi and Mohamed Adan refused to let silence smother justice. Abdullahi, a mother who watched her two sons dragged into the jaws of death, turned her pain into a protest that echoes to this day. But can echoes shatter walls of denial?

Oh, the irony! Moi’s government justified the massacre as an attempt to disarm bandits. Bandits, they said. Was it a rifle or an ethnic identity that painted targets on those men’s backs? Ethnic profiling masqueraded as security concerns, turning Wagalla into a theater of tribal warfare where the state was both director and executioner. When the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission revisited this dark chapter decades later, they found skeletons not just in graves but in government offices, still dressed in denial.

How did Wagalla reshape Kenya? Let’s speak plainly: it didn’t. Not when the ghosts of Wajir still roam the corridors of power. Accountability? The word rings hollow in a nation where history repeats itself like a broken record. The International Criminal Court? Silent. The Kenyan judiciary? Blind. Our leaders? Deaf. The victims’ families remain trapped in a paradox of memory and forgetting, clinging to photos of those they lost, while politicians parade amnesia like a badge of honor.

But let us not forget: this wasn’t just Wajir’s tragedy. It was Kenya’s shame. The echoes of Wagalla rippled across the land, a grim reminder that power unchecked is power abused. As a country, we sat back and watched, and by doing nothing, we all became accomplices. What does it say about a nation when its own people fear their defenders more than their oppressors? And what about the global community? Human rights organizations like Amnesty International decried the massacre, but decries don’t resurrect the dead.

The United Nations, that bastion of justice, remained as immobile as a shadow at noon. In the years that followed, commemorations were held. Candles were lit. Speeches were made. But speeches don’t fill mass graves, and candles don’t light the way to justice. Will Kenya ever own up to its sins, or will Wagalla remain an unhealed wound festering under the scabs of denial?

Time has a cruel way of erasing outrage. Today, Wajir’s airstrip stands barren, a monument to forgotten pain. But do you hear the whispers in the wind? They carry the names of the lost, the wails of the widowed, the pleas of the orphaned. They ask: “When will our story matter? When will justice find us?” The answers are buried under decades of bureaucracy and apathy, and every passing day feels like another nail in the coffin of accountability.

Let me conclude with a riddle: if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Wagalla fell. The world heard. But what did we do? Nothing. We watched. We listened. And then we turned away. But the ground remembers. It remembers the weight of bodies piled high, the metallic taste of blood in the air, and the deafening silence that followed the final gunshot. Wagalla is not a story of the past; it is a question for the present. How long can a nation bury its sins before the ghosts dig themselves out?

This article was scripted by;

MIDMARK ONSONGO, SGS

(Socio-Geographic Scholar)