Agony of families still searching for missing kin after anti-gov’t demos

For the last week, a family has been camping at the city mortuary in the hopes of getting a chance to view bodies as they search for one of their own.

A close family member who did not want to be identified for fear of victimization says the young man, Pablo Escobar, was abducted as he joined protesters last week in a march to honour the memory of his friend, one of the protesters killed during the ‘Occupy Parliament’ protests in the Nairobi CBD.

“Hii maandamano ya mwisho ya kuweka maua, alichukuliwa na hao mapolisi wenye walikuwa wamejifunika rafat na wamevaa hoodies. Waliluwa na gari ya polisi; hao ndio walimchukua,” she says.

His family says they have been living in agony since then with their efforts to trace him bearing no fruit.

It is a predicament that the family of 17-year-old Francis Otieno can relate to very well.

Francis has been missing since July 2 when the Mlolongo area of Machakos County witnessed intense protests.

“Hatujawahi pata any communication, tuliambiwa kwenye alikuwa nafanya kazi kwamba alikuwa kwa maandamano, tumekuja hadi huku hatujapata mwili,” says a family member.

The families form part of a larger group of people whose kin were reported missing in the last month of protests.

Some of the missing were last seen either participating in the protests or were abducted; some of them have been found safe; others have been found dead.

President William Ruto has in the face of these reports of missing people maintained that those affected make formal reports.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KHCHR) has placed the number of missing persons from the protests at 60.

The families of these two young men say they have reported their disappearances but have received little help from law enforcement.

The alleged inaction comes as human rights activists raised the alarm over the number of bodies recorded at the City Mortuary in Nairobi over the last six weeks.

“From around 25th, there have been 51 bodies recorded at the mortuary, some of them reported as accident victims, and others have bullet wounds,” says Haki Africa's Khalid Hussein

The families of the missing have now been asked to visit city morgues to confirm if their loved ones are some of the bodies that have not been identified so far.