Media Note Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC August 6, 2008 2008/620 Commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of the U.S. Embassy Bombings in Nairobi and Dar es SalaamThe U.S. Department of State and the U.S. missions in Kenya and Tanzania will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the bombings of the U.S embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 2008.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer will deliver remarks in the Dean Acheson auditorium of the Harry S Truman building in Washington, DC. In Nairobi, a private ceremony for the mission community will take place on the embassy compound. It will commence with a moment of silence at 10:40 am (the time of the bombing) and include remarks by Ambassador Michael Ranneberger and a representative of the Kenyan foreign service national survivors group will make remarks. Two hundred and eighteen people, including twelve Americans, lost their lives in the Nairobi attack of which forty-four were embassy employees. Thousands more Kenyans and Americans were injured. In Dar es Salaam, the post planning committee, comprised primarily of blast survivors, designed a ceremony incorporating music, poetry, and scripture. Muslim and Christian clergy will speak and Ambassador Mark Green and the principal guests will lay a wreath at the memorial plaque. They will recognize the survivors with the planting of a tree as a living monument. At 10:39 am local time, attendees will observe a minute of silence for the victims. Nine Tanzanians, one Kenyan, and one Somali were killed in the bombing in Dar es Salaam. More than eighty Tanzanians and Americans were injured. 2008/620 |