King Charles’s ‘deep regret’ for colonial atrocities was a ‘miss’, Kenyans say

King Charles in Nairobi. President William Ruto called Britain’s colonial suppression of the Kenyan freedom movement ‘monstrous in its cruelty’. Photograph: Samir Hussein/Shutterstock

King Charles’s expression of “greatest sorrow and deepest regret” over colonial atrocities committed by British forces in Kenya has been criticised as a “miss” in the east African country.

Reactions to the king’s statement were mixed, with the president, William Ruto, diplomatically welcoming Charles’s “courage and readiness to shed light on uncomfortable truths that reside in the darker regions of our shared experience”, but calling Britain’s colonial suppression of Kenya’s freedom movement “monstrous in its cruelty”.