The woman wearing a cap seemed suspicious to Maria Sarungi. She had walked into the spa in an affluent neighbourhood of Nairobi in January where Sarungi often spends her Sunday afternoons, stared at her and then immediately walked out.
Sarungi, a Tanzanian journalist and activist living in exile, shrugged it off and texted her husband that she would be home soon. But a few minutes later, after leaving the spa, her taxi was forced to a stop and she was dragged out, kicking and screaming, by a group of armed men. She was thrown into a black van and, as it sped through Nairobi’s streets and beyond, she felt sure she had become the latest victim of Kenya’s enforced deportations.
Dozens of activists, political opponents and asylum seekers have been abducted while living in Kenya over the past year, before, in some cases, reappearing in neighbouring African countries and elsewhere in the world. None of the alleged victims are believed to have gone through a formal deportation process.
Last July, 36 members of the Ugandan opposition party were arrested and deported to Uganda, while in October, four Turkish asylum seekers were abducted in Nairobi and returned to Turkey.
One of the most high-profile abductions was the Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who disappeared after attending a book launch in Kenya last November before reappearing in a Ugandan military prison a few days later. His wife claims he was driven over the border at night by Ugandan security operatives.
Sarungi says: “I had a sinking feeling and fear they could just disappear me like they have done with other activists.”
For hours the car she was in raced around, making sudden stops without explanation before driving off at high speed again. The men repeatedly asked her to confirm her identity, which she refused, and for the passcode to her phone, which she did not hand over. When she identified one of them as Tanzanian, she asked whether they were taking her there.
“He said, ‘Why is that an issue if we take you to Tanzania?’ I said, because the government doesn’t like me,” she recalls. “He said, ‘Why – do you have an issue with the government?’ And I said, because I’m a loud mouth.”
Sarungi had fled Tanzania in 2021 after an independent media group she started was shut down twice by the government, forcing her to relocate it to Kenya. She says she feared being imprisoned or disappeared if she was returned to Tanzania, where there has been a recent increase in human rights violations and disappearances.
Fortunantely for Sarungi, her abduction quickly gained prominence on social media. A video taken by a passerby and published online appears to show the moment the driver of a public bus tried to block in the van she was being held in, having witnessed her abduction. Her taxi driver also filed a complaint with the police. The human rights group Amnesty International quickly called for roadblocks and the closure of the Kenyan-Tanzanian border.
“My feeling is that it became very difficult for them. What they thought would be a smooth transfer became very difficult,” says Sarungi.
All of this, Sarungi believes, created enough pressure for her captors to eventually release her after five hours. Her blindfold was removed and she was ordered out of the vehicle and told not to look back. She had some cash on her, which she used to hail a taxi and to take her home.
Human rights campaigners say the spate of abductions in Kenya are part of a growing and worrying trend of transnational repression – the state-led targeting of refugees, dissidents and ordinary citizens living in exile – in the country.
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Transnational repression
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Transnational repression is the state-led targeting of refugees, dissidents and ordinary citizens living in exile. It involves the use of electronic surveillance, physical assault, intimidation and threats against family members to silence criticism. The Guardian’s Rights and freedom series is publishing a series of articles to highlight the dangers faced by citizens in countries including the UK.
The Kenyan government has obligations under international humanitarian law, including ensuring the right to a fair trial and for a person not to be returned to a place where they are likely to face the danger from which they fled, says Amnesty International’s East and Southern Africa regional director Tigere Chagutah.
Paula Cristina Roque, executive director of South Africa-based Intelwatch, which monitors the activities of intelligence agencies, says the alleged abductions are ruining Kenya’s reputation as a hub for people from across the continent to connect without having to think about whether or not they are in danger.
“They felt that it [Kenya] was a safe harbour for them. Now they no longer feel safe in Kenya. So where are they going to go? Which democracies on the continent would give the same level of protection and non-inference in politics of other countries that Kenya had in the past? If that’s been abandoned in Kenya, it’s really dangerous for everyone else.”
The Kenya high commission in London and Ministry of Foreign Affairs were contacted for comment.
