Soft-spoken Lance Corporal Eric Langat could be described as the epitome of soldiers’ resilience.
He has twice survived major attacks by the enemy in Miido and El-Adde camp in Somalia, but he remains ready to serve in the defence of his country.
He has lived to tell his battlefront stories, especially the infamous El-Adde attack on a KDF Forward Operating Base.
FLASHED LIGHTS
On the fateful day, January 11, 2016, L/Cpl Langat had just taken over sentry duties.
It had been just 15 days since 9 KR’s D company had been redeployed to Somalia after two years of fighting al-Shabaab.
The outgoing sentries had informed them that sometime at about 10pm the previous night, they had observed vehicle movements in a distance near El-Adde town, which they thought were smugglers transporting sugar. At 4.20am, a vehicle’s headlights flashed in the camp’s direction briefly then went off. Shortly thereafter, a vehicle with the lights switched off hurtled towards the camp and breached the first defence.
L/Cpl Langat and his colleague unsuccessfully tried to stop it using Rocket-Propelled Grenade. The driver of the truck avoided the trenches before hitting a tree in the middle of the camp and detonating. The explosion blew up the whole camp, especially the location of the D company, where only one soldier survived.
BALL OF FIRE
The vehicle became a huge ball of fire that both illuminated the camp and blinded those within a 200-metre radius.
Then followed two more blasts.
“When I came to, the whole camp was in chaos. We continued to fire at the enemy both from in front and behind me, but the attackers were all over, including the kitchen. It was difficult trying to shoot inside the camp for fear of hitting colleagues,” recalls L/Cpl Langat.
Captain Mbau Gichuhi, the company’s second-in-command, quickly gathered about 15 soldiers who engaged the attackers in a gun battle.
On realising that defending their positions was no longer tenable, Lance Cpl Langat and some of his colleagues escaped through the same route breached by the vehicle. A colleague was shot from behind and injured and, to avoid being captured, shot himself dead.
A
