Hola, Kenya

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Hola, also known as Galole is a small town in Kenya on the Tana River with a population of 6931 [1]. Hola is the capital of the Tana River District, in the Coast Province

Hola was the site of a detention camp Hola massacre in 1959, where a fracas occurred in which eleven detainees were killed by African prison warders. The victims were alleged Mau Mau rebels being held in the camp as part of Operation Anvil. Since the incident there have been efforts to rename the town Galole.

I, G J Wright, as an Inspector of Police, was sent to Hola a few days after the deaths occurred to relieve the incumbent who was sick. These detainees were not "alleged Mau Mau rebels" but hardcore and recalcitrant criminals who flatly refused to work on an experimental agricultrual scheme. The warders, none of who were carrying machine guns, were instructed, perhaps misguidedly, to put the detainees through the motions of work. Some of the detainess attacked the warders with picks and shovels and it was in the resulting melee that some were beaten to death. The deaths were inexcusable but it is worth noting that many of the prison warders had been with the same detainees at Mageta Island in lake Victoria and at Manyani near Voi, and were sorely tried by these thugs. Note too that there were no British Troops in Coast Province and certainly none at Hola at the time of this incident.