At least 34 people have gone missing and 11 have died during counter-terrorism operations in Kenya, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said on Wednesday.
HRW said in a report released on Wednesday that Kenyan authorities were responsible for the missing and the dead.
The HRW report confines its findings to between 2013 and 2015 in Nairobi and Northeastern Kenya where counter-terrorism operations have been intensified over the past four years.
“Kenyan authorities should end the abuses in counter-terrorism operations and promptly investigate the enforced disappearances and deaths of detainees in the northeast,” the HRW report said.
The 87-page report titled “Deaths and Disappearances: Abuses in Counterterrorism Operations in Nairobi and Northeastern Kenya,” documents 34 instances in multi-agency security operations in which the report said that “the military was actively involved in raiding homes and compounds to arrest people who were allegedly suspected of links with the armed Islamist group, Al-Shabab”.
“But months, and in some cases over a year, later, suspects have not been charged with any crimes and families cannot locate them. In each case, although families reported the disappearance to the police and sought help,” the report said.
HRW said it conducted interviews with 117 people including victims and witnesses of counter-terrorism operations, Imams, government officials, journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, police and military officers, and local community leaders. HRW also conducted follow-up interviews in Nairobi and by phone with victims and witnesses in the northeast.
“People in northeastern Kenya deserve protection from Al-Shabab attacks, not further abuse from the authorities,” said executive director at Human Rights Watch Ken Roth said.
HRW said there is concern for the 34 missing people especially after the bodies of 11 others who had also gone missing had been found.
“As far as Human Rights Watch is aware, police have not meaningfully investigated these deaths. In one instance, a body was exhumed in Mandera (Northeastern), in response to public demands, but the government has not conducted an inquest or any meaningful investigations as required by Kenyan law,” said HRW.
HRW’s profile of those arbitrarily arrested during the security sweeps included young ethnic Somali Kenyans, Imams, and Islamic school teachers. HRW says that they were detained, at least initially, in military bases and makeshift military camps in forests in the northeast and other parts of the country. In some cases, police officers arrested people, and then handed them over to the military.
One victim, a 48-year-old man told HRW that police arrested him in May 2015, held him for two days at the Wajir police station and then transferred him to the Wajir military base, in Northeastern Kenya.
He said that military officers later arrested his elder brother and held them both at Wajir military base. He told HRW that the military officers kicked, slapped, beat him, gave him electric shocks and then released him after 15 days. His brother’s whereabouts remain unknown.
HRW says that in another case, on March 21, 2015, four military officers arrested Abdiwelli Ibrahim Sheikh, 28, at his home and witnesses saw military officers take him to Mandera military camp. He has not been seen again.
“The security officers said they wanted to ask him a few questions and then they would set him free,” said a 50-year-old man who was with Abdiwelli at the time of his arrest.
“We never knew he was being taken away for good.”
HRW said that families have searched far and wide for news about their loved ones, including in detention facilities, asked political and religious leaders for their help, and, in some cases, turned to social media to try to locate the missing relatives.
Some families filed habeas corpus petitions, seeking a court order to compel the government to provide information. Officials, however, have denied any knowledge of the detainees’ whereabouts, said HRW.
“If Kenyans are disappearing, police have the mandate to actively work with families and witnesses to locate these people,” Roth said.
Counter-terrorism law enforcement operations in northeast Kenya started soon after the September 2013 attack on Westgate Mall in Nairobi and intensified after the April 2015 attack on Garissa University College in which 147 people including 142 students were killed. Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for several other high profile attacks in Kenya.
HRW says it believes that the 34 people are victims of enforced disappearance, which is defined in international law as “any deprivation of liberty by state agents, followed by the state’s refusal to acknowledge the detention or concealing of the fate or whereabouts of the person.” Kenya police and military did not reply to HRW questions about the documented victims.
Speaking to African News Agency, HRW Africa Researcher Otsieno Namwaya said that the cases they captured in the report were just a tip of the iceberg.
“There are so many other cases we could not follow up due to various obstacles. It is therefore not possible to know the exact number of people who have fallen victims of similar treatment around the country,” Namwaya said, adding that the dropped cases could easily be three times more than those documented.
Namwaya said that out of the 11 deaths, one was a woman while out of the 34 disappearances, three were women. Namwaya said that HRW recommends that Kenya’s president should establish a special commission of inquiry to investigate and establish the extent of the abuses in Kenya’s counter-terrorism operations.
He said that a recent meeting between HRW and the Parliamentary Caucus on Human Rights revealed that leaders and citizens’ representatives in the National Assembly and Senate are vaguely aware of the extent of human rights violations on terror suspects.
“There is no doubt that Kenya faces serious security challenges, but the authorities have an obligation to respond effectively and respect due process in any law enforcement operation,” the HRW boss Roth said.
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