NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 11-For many families whose loved ones have disappeared, every minute is characterized by hope, even where there is none- that they are safe and not hurting.
Despite the optimism, the anxiety and fear of the unknown is taking many and mostly the aged, to the hospital or worse enough, to the grave.
The agony of moving from one hospital to the other, one morgue to the other and endless phone calls, is the untold tale of families whose kin have mysteriously gone missing.
All they want is closure.
Tens of missing persons cases have been reported to police across the country, and according to human rights organisations, some are enforced disappearances.
A 2020 Human Rights Watch (HRW) pointed out that there is lack of accountability for serious human rights violations by security forces, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
This is despite promises by authorities to address key issues, including those that have in the past undermined Kenya’s ability to hold peaceful elections.
“Kenyan authorities failed to investigate security forces abuses, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, and hold those responsible to account,” the HRW report said.
Kenya is engaged in a heightened war against crime and more so the ever-existing threat of terror posed by the Al-Qaida linked Al-Shabaab terrorists.
Where are they?
In March 2020, a city businessman Dafton Mwitiki went missing. Police found his car dumped in a thicket in Juja, Kiambu County.
The car, a Discovery Land Rover, was found in Oaklands Estate in Juja; everything was intact.
Since then, Mwitiki, who was a licensed firearm holder has never been traced.
Mwitiki shot to the limelight during the January 15-16 2019 DusitD2 terror attack after his photo alongside Starehe politician Steve Mbogo holding sophisticated guns went viral.
Police had linked him to kidnappings within the city.
On June 12, 2021, former Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldier Mwenda Mbijiwe went missing.
His friend identified as Mathew Muhatia, and was last spotted with him is also missing.
His family filed a missing person’s report at Muthangari Police Station on June 18.
Mbijiwe’s hired car was found parked along the Kamiti Corner area, Kiambu County while that of Muhatia was found abandoned along Mai Mahiu Road, Nakuru Country.
“Our parents in Kitale are worried over his safety. We want him back. Let the government trace and bring him to us whether dead or alive,” Muhatia’s wife Cynthia Salome told Shahidi News.
Similar appeals have been made by a distraught Mbijiwe’s family.
“I cannot even sleep. I don’t know where my son is and it very traumatising,” Jane Gatwiri, Mbijiwe’s mother said.
Another recent case is that of Taimur Kariuki Hussein, whose family said went missing minutes after he was released by the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU).
Hussein, a resident of Watamu in Malindi, was arrested on June 11 by the ATPU officers near Lamu.
“The officers said they had been following him for a while,” his sister, Fauziya Hussein told Shahidi News.
On Monday June 14, he was arraigned, but the charges were dropped four days later on June 18.
“He was transferred to Nairobi for further investigations and was later produced at the Kahawa Law Courts, where the officers sought for more time to conclude their investigations,” Fauziya said.
On June 28, she said that ATPU dropped all the charges levelled against her brother, with the court issuing orders that he be released without conditions.
But on the fateful day when he was released, “after a final exit interview with ATPU officers,” he went missing.
The agreement according to Fauziya was that he would be picked from the ATPU offices in Nairobi by his mother while in the company of his lawyer.
But on arrival, “my mum was told that he was released about 30 minutes ago.”
“Why didn’t he wait for us or even call, as he would every time, he got a chance?” she wondered.
His phones were however left with the ATPU officers for further interrogation, but he was to collect them on July 2. He never did.
The family efforts to get evidence that he was indeed released has hit a dead end, after the ATPU said they had deleted the CCTV footage of him leaving their premises.
This was after the family made an application in High Court, demanding that the ATPU produce “him dead or alive.”
The only evidence that he left the premises according to Fauziya is an Occurrence Book (OB) number.
“We are not convinced. They should tell us where our brother is,” she said. “I just want to know my brother is fine.”
At the point of this interview, her aged mother was too shaken to even utter a word.
On June 29, a Nyeri businessman was abducted by four men in broad daylight. He is yet to be found.
His wife Cecilia Wamaitha said the abductors were ‘bold’ and did not fear the people who witnessed the incident.
“Our entire family is worried. We are very worried,” she told Shahidi News.
In February, 2021, declassified United Kingdom documents put the ATPU on spot, for allegedly being involved in rendition of terror suspects and other human rights abuses.
“They are fully aware of their criminal culpability so they move in under the cover of darkness, or in disguise, so that their identity is not known… in essence they operate like a criminal gang,” Kenyan public interest lawyer Willis Otieno explained during an interview with the UK publication that did the exposé.
“So it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which officers were in charge of that particular operation.”
The National Police Headquarters denied all the claims.
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