Taita Taveta · A History Restored
Kasighau in History
An Account of Britain’s Past Hidden Injustices
The untold story of a people deported from their own land during the First World War — and their long road home.
The untold story of a people deported from their own land during the First World War — and their long road home.
In 1915, as the First World War spilled into East Africa, the entire community of the Wa‑Kasighau — the people of a small mountain in Taita Taveta — were accused of aiding the enemy, uprooted from their ancestral hills, and deported into exile hundreds of kilometres from home. Almost half never returned. Drawing on years of interviews with surviving elders and patient research through colonial and missionary records, veteran journalist Dishon Shangala reconstructs one of the least‑told stories of Britain’s empire at war — a story of accusation, endurance, and a community’s determination to come home.
A true, largely unrecorded chapter of Kenyan and colonial history — the wartime deportation of an entire community, and its long return.
Built from the memories of the elders who lived it, gathered and cross‑checked against archival records before they were lost.
The final work of a respected journalist, completed and published by his family in his memory, giving the Wa‑Kasighau back their place in the record.
“Almost half never returned. But the survivors endured — and found their way home.”
Dishon Shangala was a veteran journalist, editor, and reporter who spent his career finding the truth in other people’s stories. Late in life he turned that same discipline to the history of his own community, the Wa‑Kasighau of Taita Taveta.
He did not live to see this book completed; it is published by his family, in his memory.
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