A damning new report dubbed ‘Missing Voices’ has revealed why holding police officers accountable for enforced disappearances remains nearly impossible.
According to the report, 45 of the 55 disappearances documented in 2024 were suspected to be the work of police officers.
It, however, states that most of the cases were carried out by hooded men in plain clothes, using unmarked vehicles without local number plates, further complicating efforts to trace the perpetrators.
Some four cases, it said, were linked to the Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) while six others could not be attributed to any specific security arm.
The report released Wednesday further highlights a disturbing pattern, where most of the disappearances were carried out in public and sometimes even in the presence of media.
“This makes it difficult to determine with absolute accuracy the identity of the security officers responsible for the series of enforced disappearances,” the report states.
Questions have also emerged from the public about whether all the hooded men were members of official security agencies, or if some were operatives of illegal outfits or criminals exploiting the chaos of the protests.
In 2023, five police officers and five ATPU officers were linked to enforced disappearances.
However, 2024 saw a worrying 450 per cent surge in such incidents from 10 in 2023 to 55 last year, marking the highest number since 2019.
The report notes that June 2024, during the peak of the Gen Z and Millennials’ protests against the Finance Bill 2024, witnessed the highest number of enforced disappearances at 15 cases.
October followed with 11 incidents, while July and August each recorded 7 cases.
“The government’s appetite for using enforced disappearances as a tool for suppressing dissent increased by almost five times in 2024,” it states.
Data from other human rights organisations paints an even bleaker picture, with the report indicating that Amnesty International reported 89 incidents of enforced disappearances and 65 extrajudicial killings in 2024.
Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) is said to have documented 89 enforced disappearances, 63 extrajudicial killings, and 2,000 police injuries.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) linked 74 enforced disappearances to protests against the Finance Bill between June and November 2024.
In terms of gender, out of the 55 victims documented by Missing Voices, 45 were male and nine were female, a notable shift, as all reported victims in 2023 were male.
“This implies that even though men continue to be more vulnerable to be victims of enforced disappearance, women too face a resurging danger of being victimised,” part of the report reads.
The rise in female victims has been attributed to increased participation of young women in protests.
In terms of age, 18 victims were aged 19-34, five were between 35-50, three were above 50, and two were minors.
Details of 27 victims’ ages were unavailable, it says. Nairobi County recorded the highest number of incidents at 18, followed by Kajiado (8), Kiambu and Machakos (4 each), and Nakuru (3).
Other counties reported one or two cases, while eight incidents were unclassified by location.
Missing Voices also documented the type of operation where it noted that the majority of disappearances- 32 out of 55- occurred during anti-riot responses targeting protesters against the Finance Bill, an alarming jump from just one such case in 2023.
“Four incidents were related to anti-terror responses compared to five in 2023... three cases resulted from anti-crime operations while two were through unknown operations compared to three in 2023,” it says.
It adds that despite multiple habeas corpus applications, families say their relatives remain missing, and authorities have largely ignored court orders to produce the victims.
In compiling the report, Missing Voices says it relies on monitors spread across the country to document incidents of police related killings and enforced disappearances and collect witness statements and further evidence.
“These reports are submitted to a central depository where the integrity of evidence is verified to ensure that they are accurate and hence reliable.”
