Kenyan security officers have secretly abducted at least 34 people in the last two years during abusive counter terrorism operations, a report has found.
The Human Rights Watch report, which will be officially released on Wednesday, stated the disappearances were mostly in Nairobi and North Eastern.
“In months, and in some cases over a year later, suspects have not been charged with any crimes and families cannot locate them,” it reads in part.
It adds that authorities do not inform families of the detainees’ whereabouts and do not properly investigate allegations of abuse.
It documents 34 instances of multi-agency security operations in which the military was actively involved in raiding homes and compounds to arrest people allegedly suspected of links with al Shabaab.
Some of the individuals interviewed by the Human Rights Watch recounted their ordeals.
“My brother Omar Yusuf was picked by two men from the Anti-Terror police unit. That was the last day that he was seen,” a respondent, Adan, said.
He said his brother was picked on April 26, 2016.
A woman named Halima said men, some in police uniform and others in plain clothes, picked her relative and put her in a Toyota Probox.
“They then drove away with her. They said they were going to ask her questions and would bring her back,” she recounted.
HRW urged Kenyan authorities to end the abuses in counter terrorism operations and promptly investigate the enforced disappearances.