The African Memorial dedicated to African military who died in the two World Wars, in downtown Nairobi. AP
LONDON: British authorities apologised on Thursday after an investigation found that at least 161,000 mostly African and Indian military service personnel who died during World War I weren’t properly honored due to pervasive racism. It said that number could possibly range up to 350,000.
The investigation found that those service members were either not commemorated by name or weren’t commemorated at all, according to a report commissioned by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Between 45,000 and 54,000 other casualties were commemorated unequally.
The treatment of these soldiers, who served in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, contrasts with that of the men and women who died in Europe. It also violates the principle that all war dead should be remembered in the same way because they all made the same enormous sacrifice.
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The failure to commemorate black and Asian soldiers was an inexcusable betrayal
Prejudice played a large part in the failure to mark the sacrifices of men who died for Britain.
22 April 2021 • 10:00pm
Two members of Kenya s Military Police walk past graves as they leave after attending a Remembrance Sunday event in 2016.
Credit: Ben Curtis
Yesterday, Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, expressed “deep regret” at the unequal commemoration of soldiers who died in the First World War. An “imperial ideology”, he said, resulted in up to 350,000 black and Asian soldiers not being commemorated by name, or at all, in sharp contrast to the treatment of mostly white soldiers in Europe.