The
colonial authority panicked. They declared a state of emergency, and began
confining people to "protected villages" surrounded by barbed wire
and ditches, where a curfew applied.
By the
defeat of the Mau Mau rebels in 1960, 13,500 Africans – Mau Mau guerrillas,
civilians, and soldiers – had died, along with about 100 Europeans, including
32 settlers.