A Kenyan parliamentary committee has launched an inquiry into alleged human rights violations and ethical breaches by a British Army training unit active for decades in what the UK calls “our defense partner of choice in East Africa.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defense didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The British have roughly 200 military personnel permanently based in Kenya, most of them training more than 1,000 Kenyan soldiers a year before their deployment to neighboring Somalia to combat al-Qaida’s longtime East Africa affiliate, al-Shabab. The British government invests more than 1.1 billion Kenyan shillings ($9.6 million) every year into the partnership.

But some Kenyans have raised concerns about the way British forces treat locals as well as the environment during the military training in arid, bandit-plagued areas north of Mt. Kenya. In late 2021, Kenyan police said they were reopening the case of a local woman, Agnes Wanjiru, allegedly killed by a British soldier in 2012 and found in a septic tank.

And in 2021, a local advocacy group and residents went to court alleging that a devastating fire at a wildlife conservancy had been started by a British Army training exercise. More than 10,000 acres (15 square miles) were destroyed.

Kenyan lawmakers in April ratified a new five-year defense cooperation agreement with Britain and voted to recommend that British soldiers be tried locally for murder. The British government has said it has been cooperating on the Wanjiru case.

The parliamentary committee chair, Nelson Koech, earlier this year said the inquiry “would provide an opportunity for aggrieved Kenyans to finally get justice, and that this would be a critical pillar to the committee’s resolve to ensure Kenya can hold to account visiting troops that flout the law on Kenyan soil,” according to a Parliament statement.

The parliamentary committee on defense, intelligence and foreign relations has asked the public to submit materials for its inquiry by Oct. 6.

Digital strategist and political blogger, Pauline Njoroge, has leveled allegations against detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), claiming that they illicitly withdrew Ksh 302,000 from her account during her arrest.

On the 22nd of July, Pauline Njoroge found herself in custody, caught up in the government’s pursuit of opposition figures and their associates.

Alongside her, Jane Nduta and taxi driver Emanze Jilani were also apprehended on Watamu-Jakaranda road.

As her case was deliberated on Monday, August 14, with the objective of deciding whether to charge her or close the case, a troubling issue came to light.

Njoroge raised concerns about her missing funds. To be precise, a sum of KSh 302,842 had been withdrawn from her bank account without authorization.

Njoroge’s legal representatives made it known to the Malindi Chief Magistrates Court that only DCI officers had access to her accounts prior to this incident.

In an official statement from the court papers, Njoroge’s defense stated, “The defense informed the court to put on record that on 03/08/2023 at 19:05:03 hrs there was theft of Kshs. 302,842.00 from VISA bank account of Pauline Njoroge Njoki.

Consequently the defense also applied that investigation be done by DCI alongside the current investigation and a report be filed in court on the grounds that; before the theft, the DCI officers were the only third parties who had actual possession and access to the said Bank Cards before the theft.”

In response to these developments, the prosecuting counsel indicated that they would consult with the investigating officer before reaching a conclusive decision on the two orders put forth.

Njoroge’s case is scheduled for another mention on Friday, August 18. During this proceeding, the court will address the release of her personal device and will also seek the DPP’s response concerning the missing funds.

CS Eliud Owalo noted that the government has begun a significant digital transformation agenda and improving ICT infrastructure by laying 100,000km of fibre optic cables, creating 25,000 free public Wi-Fi hotspots, and establishing 1,450 digital laboratories for the purpose of providing digital skills.

“We are rolling out the digital infrastructure to digitalize all government services, we have already digitalised a total of 5,084 services, which are available on the e-citizen platform,” he said.

The CS observed that the Ministry is also digitising government records with an aim to run a paperless government.

He reiterated that the government has embarked on massive digital skilling among Kenyans to ensure there is commensurate level of digital skills that facilitate consumption of virtual government services and create digital jobs.

“we believe that we should be able to create about 1 million jobs in the digital space,” said CS Owalo.

The CS added that in the domain of digital entrepreneurship, the government has created the Konza Technopolis and the foundation in the hopes that private partners will join in and turn it into Africa’s Silicon Savannah.

There are several parallel projects running across the world to save the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum), one of Africa’s captivating and iconic wildlife species. With the death of last male in 2018 and with only two females alive, the species is functionally extinct.

The most famous of these projects is an international research consortium called BioRescue. It was founded in 2019 by a team of scientists and conservationists under the leadership of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo & Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany.

In one of its research lines, the BioRescue team collects mature eggs – scientifically called oocytes – from one of the only two northern white females. They reside in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a privately run wildlife sanctuary. These eggs will be fertilised with frozen sperm that were collected from several northern white male rhinos before their death.

The two remaining females, Najin and Fatu, are not capable of delivering offspring anymore. Najin’s back legs are too weak to carry a pregnancy and Fatu has problems with her uterus. Therefore, the resulting embryos from the fertilised eggs will be transferred into surrogate mothers.

The most suitable surrogate mother would be a southern white rhino as it is the closest related species. But, placing a northern white rhino embryo in a southern white female rhino isn’t an easy task. However, there was promising news in May 2023. Next to the addition of five more northern white embryos – which brings the total to 29 – two wild southern white rhinos were identified as suitable surrogates, as they can still get pregnant and are able to carry the pregnancy through.

The goal of producing a new northern white rhino calf now seems more realistic than ever before.

Sometimes people question the funding and effort spent on one species, but the science behind the rhinoceros story is much bigger. Any species going extinct has huge consequences on the ecosystem, and people’s survival depends on resources provided by this same ecosystem. As a recognisable, impressive and majestic animal, rhinos certainly have a role as a flagship of conservation efforts.

Further, joint efforts on one species can provide scientific knowledge that allows for a multi-species conservation approach. These techniques would not only save the northern white rhinoceros, but also other rhino species, related species with a common ancestor, and all other creatures in need.

Different approaches

Despite the great scientific strides made in efforts to save the northern white rhino, the success rate of embryo transplantation followed by pregnancy to term is extremely low. Parallel initiatives focusing on different conservation approaches are indispensable to ensure the future of this species.

While BioRescue is collecting matured eggs after hormonal stimulation, the Rhino Fertility Project at the University of Oxford in the UK is focusing on growing follicles, which are structures found in the ovary containing an immature egg surrounded by a few layers of supporting cells. These supporting cells provide signals and components essential for the development of the eggs. The idea is to make use of the much greater potential of the ovary by collecting the very small follicles and growing them all in a petridish in the lab.

This would bypass atresia, which is the degradation of follicles that occurs during a natural hormonal cycle. As member of this project, one of us, Ruth Appeltant, was hopeful that this method had the potential to quickly provide a vast number of in vitro-grown oocytes, or mature eggs.

Unfortunately, it became clear that the ovarian tissue of older rhinoceroses contained extremely few to no oocytes. These eggs were needed as the starting material for the project. Without eggs, there is nothing to grow. Ongoing efforts are now looking to establish ways to localise and process the few remaining follicles in old ovarian tissue.

This bottleneck led us to the area of stem cell technologies. At the Gamete Research Centre of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, our group is aiming to produce eggs outside the body from stem cells. These could be used to conserve endangered species like the rhinoceros.

The BioRescue project and a research group at the San Diego Zoo in the US are also aiming to produce artificial eggs from body cells present in tissues.

The common thread is turning cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, which are immature cells generated from mature cells, and that can in turn differentiate into eggs. In fact, this process can transform a skin cell into an egg. The procedure has so far been completed successfully in mice and could already provide a kind of precursor to oocytes in the northern white rhino.

The collection of oocytes is a really tricky process due to the technical difficulties in reaching the site of the ovaries in living animals. Advanced artificial reproductive techniques using body cells, such as skin cells, introduce a spectrum of new possibilities. Most biological samples stored to date consist of small skin samples, but not of oocytes.

A downside to this approach is the fact that scientists first need to succeed in producing stem cells in the species of interest.

At the University of Antwerp’s Gamete Research Centre, we’re not only interested in developing stem cell technologies based on induced pluripotent stem cells, but are currently establishing the in vitro gametogenesis – or “in vitro oocyte-creation” technique – based on stem cells present in the ovary. Due to a scarcity of tissues from endangered species, we are using the pig as a large animal model. This will give us more in-depth knowledge on how to approach egg creation from stem cells already present in the animal, termed endogenous stem cells.

What next?

When we do not have eggs, let’s create them. When we have stem cells, let’s use them. Researchers now know that samples of the northern white rhino individuals currently stored in biobanks have enough genetic variability to establish a viable and sustainable population.

A decade ago, we would have never imagined eggs could be produced from other cells. This is becoming a reality that gives us hope, motivation and energy to save the northern white rhino.

Ruth Appeltant, Assistant research professor, University of Antwerp and Rita L. Sousa, PhD Candidate, University of Antwerp

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.