Africa hosts the largest number of British Armed Forces personnel outside the United Kingdom.
Over recent years, Kenya has become a common destination for UK troops taking part in the gruelling Exercise Askari Storm.
The exercise is run by the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK), a permanent training support unit based mainly in Nanyuki, 124 miles north of the capital Nairobi.
Members of the 2 Rifles Battle Group volunteer to help local School with some renovation work.Volunteers from Battle…
Posted by British Army Training Unit, Kenya – BATUK on Thursday, March 28, 2019
BATUK consists of around 100 permanent staff and is reinforced by a short tour cohort of another 280 personnel.
Under an agreement with the Kenyan Government, up to six infantry battalions per year carry out the exercises.
There are also Royal Engineer exercises, which carry out civil engineering projects, and medical deployments, which provide primary health care assistance to the civilian community.
The soldiers train alongside members of the Kenyan Defence Forces.
Exercise Askari Storm aims to challenge soldiers in a hot arid environment, living in basic camps in the bush, a far cry from the comforts of life in the UK, and allows battalions to prove themselves battle ready.
Battalion 2 Rifles will complete its six-week exercise in April as part of readiness training before deploying to Kabul in Afghanistan in 2020.
Before 2 Rifles, the 1 LANCS battlegroup of The Duke Of Lancaster’s Regiment were the most recent to complete the training exercise, arriving after the Parachute Regiment’s 2 Para – who completed the exercise at the end of last year.
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