Mombasa family in agony as man disappears without trace

A family in Mombasa County is accusing immigration officers of being responsible for the mysterious disappearance of their 30-year-old relative.

The family members said that Abdhulhakim Abdhallah Mohammed was called by immigration officers to fetch his friend’s passport at the immigration offices on June 12, 2014.

They say he was picked up by people suspected to be security officers.

Speaking at the Mombasa office of the group Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri), his wife Fatma Omar said the last call that her husband received was from an immigration official in Mombasa just before his disappearance.

JOBLESS

She added that her jobless husband had no intention of travelling anywhere outside the country since all his documents, including his passport, driving license, and identification cards, were still in their house.

“He was helping his friend get a passport. He is a good man and not a terrorist or a criminal.

"A woman by the name Nancy called my husband and I received the call. The caller introduced herself as an immigration officer requesting to speak with my husband. I told her he was not around but after ten minutes she called again insisting she wanted to speak with Abdhulhakim,” said the distraught wife.

Mrs Omar said she received information that her husband had reportedly been arrested and taken to the Port police station, where she claimed he was being held.

WOMAN CALLED

“When my husband came back I told him a woman from the immigration department had called. He told me he was going to the immigration offices to get his friend’s passport. That was the last time I saw and heard from him,” she said.

She said a man who had been held at the same police station came to visit them a few days earlier with news from her husband that he was okay but being held at the Port police station.

She claimed that the call from the immigration officer was just a trap to capture her husband.

“Whenever we go to the Port police station to enquire about him they deny holding my husband.

"I have gone to all the police stations in the coast region, but there are no traces of my husband. He is a good man. Anti-terror police officers have also denied arresting him,” she said.

'I MISS MY SON'

His mother, Bi Nafuu Abdallah, appealed to the immigration officials in coast region to produce her son or state his disappearance.

“I miss my son; I don’t know where he is or how he is doing. We have gone to every police station in (the) coast region, but we have not found him,” she said.

Muhuri’s Rapid Response officer Francis Auma said the lobby group would write an official letter to the United Nations so that the government would be forced to produce the man maintaining that cases of disappearances are rampant in the coast region.

Mr Auma said Muhuri has documented more than 15 cases of people who have disappeared in the hands of the police in Lamu County during the clashes that rocked the region.

He said according to the law, one should not be held in a police cell for more than 24 hours without being arraigned in court.

DOCUMENTED DISAPPEARANCES

“We have documented many cases of disappearance which eventually point at the State organs," he said.

Right now we have 15 cases of youths who have disappeared in Lamu and the State seems to have a hand in it. Applying for habeas corpus is very expensive.

The pattern and variety involves illegal rendition, where people are being taken to Uganda and Ethiopia,” he added.

But the coast regional immigration boss Joseph Kanyiri dismissed the reports while urging the family to report the matter to CID officers for investigation to be conducted.

“It is normal for our officers to call customers, but when you say he was arrested by immigration officers you are lying,” he added.