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Yesterday, as the world commemorated the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, human rights defenders, survivors, families of missing persons and progressive civil society organisations converged at Muhuri Gardens in Mombasa to confront one of Kenyaβs most painful and persistent human rights crises.
The gathering brought together Missing Voices, Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), International Justice Mission (IJM) and the Social Justice Movement, united by a simple but powerful demand: no person should disappear at the hands of the state or any other actor and be erased from public memory.
The commemoration came against a disturbing national backdrop. Missing Voices has documented 19 cases of enforced disappearance between January and August 2026, while its broader documentation records 86 cases between 2023 and 2026. Behind every number is a human being, a family forced to live with uncertainty, and a community demanding answers.
For the families, disappearance is not an event that ends. It is an open wound. Every knock at the door raises hope. Every unidentified body carries the possibility of devastating news. Every unanswered question deepens the pain. This is why the struggle for justice cannot be reduced to statistics or institutional statements.
At Muhuri Gardens, participants called for Kenya to criminalise enforced disappearances as a specific offence, close the legal gaps that enable impunity and fully implement the Victim Protection Act, 2014. The HAKI Kwa Wote campaign launched in Mombasa seeks to strengthen protection for victims and survivors while ensuring that institutions responsible for justice actually deliver it.
Kenya must also move from promises to action by ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the country signed in 2007 but has yet to ratify.
The progressive struggle against enforced disappearance is ultimately a struggle for a democratic Kenya where the Constitution is lived, not merely celebrated. It is a struggle against a culture in which security agencies can deny responsibility while families search endlessly for their loved ones.
As Kenya approaches the 2027 elections, the message from Mombasa must resonate across the country: the right to life, liberty, dignity and due process cannot depend on political affiliation, age, neighbourhood or whether one is considered troublesome by those in power.
The missing must not become forgotten. Their families must not be abandoned. And enforced disappearance must never become normalised as a tool of power.
We demand truth. We demand justice. We demand accountability. We demand an end to enforced disappearances.