• Enforced disappearance occurs when one is abducted and taken off the public radar
• This is usually done by state officials but can be committed by armed non-state actors
Image: BRIAN OTIENO
According to Amnesty International, victims of enforced disappearance are people who have literally disappeared from their loved ones and their community.
They go missing when a state official (or someone acting with state consent) grabs them from the street or their homes and then denies it or refuses to say where they are.
Sometimes disappearances may be committed by armed non-state actors, like armed opposition groups or criminal groups. Either way, it is a crime under international law.
Even if they escape death and are eventually released, the physical and psychological scars stay with them. Family and friends of people who have disappeared experience slow mental anguish, not knowing whether their son or daughter, mother or father is still alive.
Globally, most victims of enforced disappearance are men. However, it is women who most often lead the struggle to find out what happened in the minutes, days and years since the disappearance, putting themselves at risk of intimidation, persecution and violence.
To top it all, the disappeared person is most often the family’s major breadwinner, meaning there is always a trail of suffering for the family dependent on these people.
Lamu human rights activist Moussa Abdullahi says a disappeared person is also at a high risk of torture since they are placed completely outside the protection of the law.
He says the victim’s lack of access to legal remedies puts them at a terrifying situation of complete defencelessness.
“They are also at heightened risk of other human rights violations, such as sexual violence or even murder,” he said.
He says every disappearance violates at least seven human rights including the right to a fair trial and the right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Clerics in Lamu county have raised concern over the growing number of enforced disappearances in Lamu and the Coast region, many of which remain unsolved years later.
Human rights group Haki Africa says more than 60 per cent remain missing across the Coastal region after they are taken by state officers.
Said Khatamai, chief imam of the Markaz Habib Swaleh mosque in Lamu Island, said the families deserve closure and the truth on what exactly happened to their relatives.
“Let them be told what befell their relatives so they can be at peace. Not knowing whether they are alive or dead is too much torture. This trend must also stop,” he said.
“Let people be arrested the right way if at all they have committed crimes and the due legal process be followed.”
Among cases of enforced disappearances that remain unsolved years later is that of businessman and rights activist Mohamed Avukame, who was abducted by men in a black Toyota Prado at the Mombasa High Court grounds on August 23, 2017, never to be seen again.
His elder brother Bwanaheri Avukame says the men who took away his brother were police officers as they brandished handcuffs and pistols.
The family of Imrana Makka, 29, say he was abducted by three men who identified themselves as the Anti-Terror Police Unit on March 31, 2015, in Malindi town. The father of three has never been heard from since and his whereabouts remain unknown.
There is also the family of father of nine Ali Bunu, 42, who was allegedly picked up at gunpoint by unknown people in police and military vehicles on the night of April 8, 2016, from his home in Kwasasi village, Lamu West.
His house and livestock were also set ablaze by the ‘officers’ before he was whisked away into the silent night, never to be heard from again.
His four workers and nephew who were arrested with him that night were later dumped in a bush close to the Bargoni military camp, from where they found their way home and lived to tell the tale.
Others include Osma Abdi (June 15, 2014), Mohamed Abdalla (June 14, 2018), Ahmed Athman (September 2018).
The clerics also want the government to compensate all families of victims of enforced disappearances as most were breadwinners.
“We have seen families suffer irreparably after the breadwinner disappears. Many have never recovered and that’s why we feel the need for compensation,” Imam Fathi Mohamed said.