Nairobi — President-Elect William Ruto has joined other leaders across the globe in mourning Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom following her passing Thursday.
Queen Elizabeth II passed on at her Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, at 96.
While condoling with the Royal family, Ruto celebrated the queen over what he described as the admirable leadership of the Commonwealth for the past seven decades.
“She steered the institution’s evolution into a forum for effective multilateral engagement whose potential to drive tremendous socioeconomic progress remain incontestable and redounds to the Queen’s historic legacy,” Ruto said Thursday.
The President-Elect said that the country will miss the cordial ties the Queen enjoyed with Kenya while she was alive.
President Uhuru Kenyatta In his message of condolence and comfort to His Majesty King Charles III, the Royal Family, Prime Minister Liz Truss and the British people, President mourned the 96-year-old monarch as a towering global icon of selfless service to humanity.
“Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was a towering icon of selfless service to humanity and a key figurehead of not only the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations where Kenya is a distinguished member but the entire world,” President Kenyatta mourned.
The President said he received the sad news of the passing on of Queen Elizabeth II with great sorrow and a deep sense of loss saying the People and the Government of the Republic of Kenya stands in solidarity with the Royal Family, the United Kingdom and the world in mourning the departed monarch.
The Head of State recalled Kenya’s close ties with Queen Elizabeth II noting that the longest serving monarch in British history took over from her father, King George VI, who died while she was on safari in Kenya.
Queen Elizabeth II, full name Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, ascended to the throne and became Queen in 1952 aged 25 years. She celebrated platinum jubilee this year to mark 70 years of her reign.