Kenyans want Britain to be held accountable for its colonial-era crimes.

A group of Kenyan residents have filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights over the abuses meted out against their forefathers. The plaintiffs say their forefathers were tortured and expelled from their ancestral lands in Kenya’s Kericho region – an area that is one of the most important in the world for tea production.

Lawyer Joel Kimutai Bosek says the British government has been trying to duck and dive in order to avoid every possible avenue of redress.

The British government has declined to engage the suit directly.

In 2013, Britain agreed on a multi-million dollar compensation settlement for Kenyans tortured by colonial forces during an uprising at the tail end of the British Empire.

According to the United Nations, more than half a million Kenyans from the Kericho region suffered gross violations of human rights including murder.