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Kenyan activist Bill Eugene Omollo was walking home after dark in his Nairobi neighbourhood on June 20 when he spotted trouble – two men eyeing him next to a parked white pick-up without number plates.
The 28-year-old had been involved in the youth-led protests that have upended Kenya since last month and had been released by police only hours earlier following his arrest at one of the demonstrations.
He shouted for help. “But people were also running. So they took me,” he told Reuters.
Dozens of Kenyans have been targeted in similar abductions in the past two weeks, said human rights groups, who blame the extrajudicial arrests on Kenya’s intelligence services.
Organised online and leaderless, the protest – initially a call to repeal tax hikes – has developed into a movement that has cut across Kenya’s traditional ethnic divisions, becoming the biggest threat to William Ruto’s two-year-old presidency.
Kenya | Police open fire on protestors:
Though Ruto withdrew the tax increases in a victory for the movement, the heavy-handed reaction to the protests – campaign groups have documented hundreds of arrests and at least 39 deaths – has raised fears of rights backsliding.
“The president and I gave a categorical promise to the people of Kenya that the issue was abductions and extrajudicial killings will never happen again,” Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said in a televised address. “Sadly, this is back.”
A police spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the abductions. Nor did Noordin Haji, the director of Kenya’s intelligence services.
In an interview on Sunday, Ruto denied police involvement in disappearances but broadly defended the actions of the security forces.
However, Irungu Houghton, executive director of Amnesty International Kenya, told Reuters there were clear cases of abuse.
