Families seek answers over missing kin

As the world marked the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, two families in Mombasa are demanding answers over the whereabouts of their relatives who were taken from their homes by people who claimed to be the police.

One of the family members said their kin has been missing since August 8, 2026.

According to the families, their relatives were initially arrested by police on allegations of being members of criminal gangs and taken to court but were acquitted for lack of evidence.

One of the families said that five days after their kin was released, people who claimed to be police officers returned to their home at around 1pm, broke into their house and took one of the men who was released by the court.

Since then, they have no idea of the whereabouts of their kin.

The families spoke in Mombasa during the commemoration of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, where relatives of missing persons, activists and human rights defenders gathered to demand answers and accountability.

Ahmed Hussain, a relative of one of the missing men, said the family has so many unanswered questions.

"This has affected us too much as a family. He is a father of three, and his children keep asking us where their father is," he said.

Muhammed Said, the father of the missing man, said the family is in distress after they took away his son.

"My son was abducted by police and was later taken to court, then released due to lack of evidence. After five days, they came to take him. It was around 1pm in the afternoon. We did not open the house, so they broke in and took him away. We do not know where they took him," said Said

"Now it is 19 days since this happened, and we are asking the police where he is, but they are not telling us where he is," he added.

The families are now calling on the police and other relevant authorities to establish the whereabouts of their relatives.

DCI spokesman John Marete said enforced disappearance was not a tool of the police service, adding that any officer involved in such practices would be acting as a criminal rather than a police officer.

Marete also said some cases reported as enforced disappearances were related to trafficking and therefore did not constitute enforced disappearance.

According to data from the Missing Voices Coalition cited by Amnesty International Kenya, 19 cases of enforced disappearance and 69 police killings had been recorded in 2026.

The coalition documented 55 cases of enforced disappearance in 2024, compared with six in 2025. Between 2023 and 2026, it documented 86 such cases.

Khelef Khalifa, board director of Muslims for Human Rights, acknowledged areas of collaboration between law enforcement officers and civil society actors, citing peaceful demonstrations held to commemorate victims of protest violence during the Gen Z demonstrations.

National Police Service spokesperson Michael Muchiri called for greater collaboration between the police and the community in tackling criminality, saying anyone involved in abductions or enforced disappearances should not be regarded as a police officer.

"Nobody can benefit from criminality, and anybody who does that is not one of us. As the police, our responsibility is to protect the people as duty bearers, and we are not responsible for enforced disappearance," Muchiri said.

Muchiri said the Inspector General of Police and the DCI boss had appeared in court on several occasions to respond to cases involving alleged enforced disappearances, saying this was among the ways the police service was addressing the issue.

"I want to acknowledge those families who have lost their loved ones. Personally, the other police officers and I are doing what we can to protect lives. It is a collaborative responsibility to come together and end criminality of whatever form," he said.

He maintained that anyone who abducts people was acting as a criminal and not as a police officer, adding that the National Police Service had recently formed a task force to investigate cases of enforced disappearances.

"There is an ongoing case in Machakos that we are investigating," he said.