Kenya\u2019s military chief, Francis Ogolla, died in a helicopter crash in the western part of the country on Thursday, President William Ruto announced in a televised address. <\/p>\n
The helicopter crashed shortly after take-off on Thursday afternoon local time, killing Ogolla and nine other members of the military, Ruto said. Two people survived the crash, he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am deeply saddened to announce the passing on of General Francis Omondi Ogolla, the Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
A team of investigators has been dispatched to the site of the crash in Elgeyo Marakwet County to determine the cause of the accident, Ruto said. <\/p>\n
Ogolla departed Nairobi on Thursday to visit troops in the North Rift region of the country and to inspect ongoing school renovations, the president said. <\/p>\n
Following the crash, Ruto convened an urgent meeting of the country\u2019s National Security Council in Nairobi, according to presidential spokesperson Hussein Mohamed. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, as the Commander in Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces, it is a tragic moment for the Kenya Defence Forces fraternity and it is a most unfortunate day for the nation at large,\u201d Ruto said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur motherland has lost one of her most valiant generals. We have also lost gallant officers, servicemen, and women,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Kenya will observe three days of mourning beginning on Friday, Ruto said. <\/p>\n
According to state broadcaster Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), Ogolla is the first Kenyan military chief to die in active service. The general joined the Kenya Defence Forces in 1984, becoming 2nd Lieutenant in 1985 before being posted to the Kenya Air Force, according to the Ministry of Defence website. <\/p>\n
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kenya\u2019s military chief, Francis Ogolla, died in a helicopter crash in the western part of the country on Thursday, President William Ruto announced in a televised address. The helicopter crashed shortly after take-off on Thursday afternoon local time, killing Ogolla and nine other members of the military, Ruto said. Two people survived the crash, he <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}