Vandalised World War I memorials restored

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CGWC) will this week complete restoration and repairs on the World War I African Memorials (the Askari memorials) in Mombasa County.

The restoration project is estimated to cost Sh5.85 million according to CWGC Africa technical manager David Mcdonald.

The memorials, which were constructed after WWI to commemorate all African soldiers and carriers who died in the 1914-18 war, were vandalised and some parts stolen.

“A number of years ago there was quite a lot of damage to the memorials, the most obvious piece was the staff stolen together with other pieces.

The first repair we did was restoring the staff, a strap to the water bottle, the end of the knife, the straps on the rifles that were also broken during the spate of vandalism,” Mr McDonald told the Nation.

In February, Mr McDonald and 3D scanner specialists Luke Abbott and Ben Williams from the UK took permanent records of the memorials in East Africa to be restored.

He said that the facelift also includes restoring the central panel on the bottom of the memorial.

“We have taken it down and taken it away, flown to the UK. The piece of art was flown back by the Royal Air Force and we are keen that it is restored to commemorate the soldiers who died in the war,” the CWGC official said.

The memorials were originally created in London by sculptor James Alexander Stevenson who was appointed “lead architect” by the CWGC and put up in prominent urban locations beginning with Nairobi in 1924, Mombasa 1926, Dar es Salaam 1927 and Lagos, Nigeria, in 1931.

“The Mombasa African Memorial is a beautiful piece of art work and we are here to try and restore it back to ensure that it lasts another 100 plus more years. We want it to be a reminder for the generations,” he said.