In what may be his first overseas trip a week after his inauguration, Kenya’s 5th President William Ruto has been invited by his Majesty the King Charles III to attend the State Funeral of his mother Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on Monday.
President Ruto is expected to leave the country at the weekend even though he has a busy schedule running up to Sunday where he is expected at an event in Kisumu. He is also expected to close the Council of Governors induction seminar for governors in Mombasa on Saturday.
A senior government source confirmed that President Ruto had been invited for the Queen’s State Funeral which is the second such high profile event since the State Funeral of former UK Prime Minister Winston Church who died in 1965.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had had close ties with Kenya making several trips to her former colony during her 70-year reign, the longest of all other British monarchs.
Her elevation to the throne happened in Kenya at the Treetops hotel, where she received the reports of the death of her father King George VI in 1952. The hotel was later razed down by Mau Mau fighters when the fight for independence escalated.
