Emmanuel Mukuria, a 24-year-old bus driver, vanished during a protest against a controversial finance bill in Nairobi on June 25, 2024. After the bill's passage, protests resulted in violence, with at least 60 people killed by security forces. Rights groups report over 70 abductions, leaving families like Mukuria's desperate for answers. While President William Ruto acknowledged the disappearances, claiming all had returned home, Human Rights Watch described abductions as state policy. Police have denied involvement, attributing the issues to criminal gangs, but the tension and fear regarding government actions remain palpable in the wake of the unrest.
Last month, Kenyan President William Ruto acknowledged the wave of disappearances for the first time but said all those taken had been returned to their families.
Abductions are now an official state policy, said Otsieno Namwaya, associate director for Africa at Human Rights Watch.
Police don't abduct, we arrest, he told The Washington Post, saying it was possible criminal gangs were behind the abductions.
Mukuria's relatives had spent a month searching for him in morgues, hospitals and police stations when a bruised young man turned up at their house.
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