Without a trace: Probe gaps, State silence shroud missing persons cases

Mwenda Mbijiwe, a former Kenya Air Force officer and security analyst, has been missing since June 2021. [File, Standard]

Jane Gatwiri has not stopped counting the days. As of this week, her son Mwenda Mbijiwe, a former Kenya Air Force officer, security analyst, and aspiring politician, has been missing for 1,820 days.

On Wednesday, her last legal hope crumbled when Milimani High Court Justice Martin Muya dismissed her application seeking her son to be produced alive, ruling there was insufficient evidence to establish that Mbijiwe was held in State custody when he vanished on June 12, 2021.

She left the court without answers. She and her lawyer wept. And Mwenda Mbijiwe remains one of Kenya's most haunting missing persons cases, a ghost of a man swallowed by a system that, as the judge himself acknowledged, was "wanting in substance" when it came to investigating his disappearance.

But Gatwiri is not alone. Across Kenya, dozens of families, Gen Z activists, businessmen, politicians, ordinary citizens and journalists are trapped in the same nightmare, names filed at police stations, faces printed on flyers, questions answered only by silence, as they continue to wait for answers years after their loved ones vanished without a trace.

Their cases form a damning mosaic of enforced disappearances that human rights groups, courts, and international watchdogs say are linked to State security agencies operating in the shadows beyond the reach of the law.

Mbijiwe's last known public appearance was on June 10, 2021, when he spoke on national security matters on Muuga FM radio.

Two days later, he was travelling along Roysambu Road towards his rural home in Meru County when, according to his family, he was abducted by men believed to be police officers.

His hired vehicle, registration KCN 601K, was later found vandalised and abandoned near Tatu City in Kiambu County.

His phone went offline immediately. Efforts to trace the car's movement showed it had been driven towards Thika before being abandoned.

The key witness who could have shed light on his disappearance, Edwin Mwangi Macharia, the car owner, failed to appear in court despite being summoned.

"There is no evidence to indicate whether Mbijiwe was in legal custody of the state agencies or under the custody of a specified or identifiable person," Justice Muya ruled on June 3, 2026.

While dismissing the application, Justice Muya was scathing in his assessment of how investigators handled the disappearance of Mbijiwe.

He noted that key investigative tools, including IMEI history, call data, geomapping, banking fraud investigations, and NTSA vehicle checks, were only activated five years after the disappearance.

"These investigating tools were being activated five years after the disappearance. What value can these investigations yield after such a duration?"

The judge cited the constitutional mandate that investigations into disappearances must be prompt, independent, and effective.

 "The investigations into the disappearance of Mbijiwe are wanting in substance."

Yet the court's hands were tied. The application before it was specifically a habeas corpus petition, not a supervisory mandate over investigations.

The central question of what happened to Mbijiwe, who may have been responsible, and whether he is alive or dead, remains entirely unanswered.

Speaking outside court, a tearful Gatwiri alleged that former DCI Director George Kinoti, former Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho, and former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i were behind her son's disappearance, linking it to a financial dispute over funds expected from abroad to support Mbijiwe's planned Meru gubernatorial campaign.

"My son was summoned to come and say whether he would agree to share 20 per cent of the money that was coming from overseas on June 15, 2021. When we went to the police, a DCIO known as Mworia told us they were investigating Mbijiwe's account, meaning the security agents were well aware of that money," Gatwiri told journalists.

She has appealed directly to President William Ruto to intervene in her son's disappearance.

"I want the President to call me to the State House. He was the Deputy President when Kibicho, Matiang'i, and Kinoti were security chiefs. He knows everything they did. Even though we have lost in court, there is still hope," Gatwiri said. 

Her lawyer, Evans Ondieki, in tears, said the family would review the judgment before deciding on an appeal.

"Sadly, this mother has left court without answers about where her son is," Lawyer Ondieki said.

The case had already consumed years of legal battles. On several occasions, the court summoned IG Douglas Kanja and DCI boss Mohamed Amin to appear personally on December 16, 2025, to explain Mbijiwe's whereabouts.

The two senior officers failed to appear, sending a lawyer and an investigating officer instead, prompting the family to seek their arrest warrants.

The court declined to issue warrants but demanded a detailed investigation report.  

Whereas Mbijiwe's has been a court matter, the June 2024 anti-Finance Bill protests triggered an alarming surge in enforced disappearances.

When protesters, many of them young, digitally savvy, and politically engaged, took to the streets demanding accountability, the State's response included not just teargas and live bullets but a systematic campaign of abductions that human rights groups have documented with increasing alarm.

The civil society coalition Missing Voices documented 55 enforced disappearances in 2024 alone, a staggering 450 per cent increase from 10 cases in 2023 and the highest annual figure ever recorded.

The Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) put its own tally even higher at 89 enforced disappearances during the period.

Police acknowledged 57 official abduction reports to Parliament, with 22 found alive, six found dead, and 29 still unaccounted for.

The KHRC chairperson, Roseline Odede, said the pattern of disappearances was deeply troubling.  

"These abductions are perpetuated clandestinely, with unidentified armed persons targeting vocal dissidents, particularly those active on social media. We have documented 82 cases since June 2024, with 29 people still missing. This is not a coincidence, it is a pattern, and the State must be held accountable," Odede said.

Among the most prominent cases: Gideon Kibet, the cartoonist known as Kibet Bull, whose disappearance sparked national and international outrage; Steve Mbisi Kavingo, abducted in December 2024 and among those whose whereabouts remained unclear into 2026; Emmanuel Mukuria, a bus driver who disappeared during the protests; and ICT guru Ndiang'ui Kinyagia, who went missing on June 21, 2025, after an alleged police raid on his Kinoo home, a year to the day that protests had peaked.

Some cases had happier endings. Billy Mwangi, Peter Muteti, Bernard Kavuli, Ronny Kiplangat, Bob Njagi, Aslam Longton, and Longton Jamil were all reported abducted but later found alive or released.

Their testimonies of what they endured in captivity painted a disturbing picture of a state apparatus comfortable operating outside the law.

By mid-2026, rights-group reports indicated that about 25 people connected to the protest period and its aftermath remain unaccounted for, their families suspended in the same anguish as Mbijiwe's mother and the Bosire family before them.

The judiciary has become the last refuge for families of the disappeared, and even there, the path has been torturous.

 The LSK, the KHRC, the International Commission of Jurists, and human rights advocates have filed a succession of urgent habeas corpus applications, compelling courts to order the production of missing persons or explanations from the State.

 IG Douglas Kanja, DCI boss Mohamed Amin, and Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen have all been hauled to court repeatedly, only to send lawyers in their place.

The pattern has been consistent: orders are issued, the security chiefs fail to appear, fresh orders are made, lawyers arrive instead of the principals, and adjournments follow adjournments.

In one case over the disappearance of four activists, Justice Bahati Mwamuye warned Kanja: "If you miss the third hearing, I will have no option but to cite, convict, and sentence you on the spot." 

He still did not appear personally.

Murkomen sought to distance himself, arguing through lawyers that his role was "policy direction only" and that he had not authorised any abductions.

The Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) 2026 Country Report on Kenya was damning: "The freedoms of association and expression have been restricted, with heavy-handed responses to protests and numerous reports of threats, abductions and enforced disappearances."

In 2025, former presidential aspirant Reuben Kigame filed a private prosecution case against Murkomen and security chiefs, listing 91 Kenyans killed between June 2024 and July 2025, framing it as the first step toward inviting the ICC to intervene.

As of June 2026, multiple cases remain pending. The missing remains missing. No senior government official has been held criminally liable for a single disappearance.

 Over 700 cases of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings have been tallied by the KNCHR since President Ruto's inauguration.

Missing Voices warns that fewer than two per cent of police killings are ever prosecuted, and Kenya has still not ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, nor enacted a law criminalising the practice.