Captors fed us on bread and water, says brave boy who ran away from hell

Happy to be back home, 11-year-old Reagan Nyambati is seen here with his mother Phyllis Kerubo in Nairobi. They young boy was held captive by kidnappers for a month before he escaped on July 17. He says there were more than 20 young boys held in the same compound with him. PHOTO | JENNIFER MUIRURI

What you need to know:

  • Reagan Nyambati was going home after an evening of football when a car blocked him and two men abducted him. He tells us how he survived the darkest chapter of his young life, and his brave escape.
  • Even after his safe return home, Reagan’s mother fears for her son’s life. She fears that the kidnappers may strike again, or even put the other children left behind at a greater risk.

Reagan Nyambati is just 11 years old, but he has been to hell and back. Reunited with his family after a month in captivity, he still does not know who kidnapped him or where he was being held, and that is a puzzle he hopes the police will help him solve. All he remembers is that he had company in captivity, and that they were kept in a house with a sizeable compound fenced with iron sheets. The house, he says, was in a “quiet estate” and there were several cars parked within the compound

A mother’s greatest nightmare is losing a child, whether through death or disappearance into nothingness. So when Phyllis Kerubo learnt that her son, 11-year-old Reagan Nyambati, had vanished on the evening of June 21 this year, she was devastated.

On the first night, Kerubo did not sleep a wink as her mind was on overdrive mode. She was thinking about her boy, the young man who had brought her so much joy when she gave birth to him all those 11 years ago. Had he had dinner? Was he safe wherever he was? Would she ever hold him in her arms again?

The next day she reported the matter to Ruai Police Station, then she printed posters to announce that her only son was missing. She called friends, relatives and acquaintances to ask if they had seen her son, but none had, and it was driving her crazy.

PARTED WAYS

Reagan had spent the late afternoon of the fateful day playing football with his friend — a young boy named Stanley — at a dusty field in Ruai, along Kangundo Road on the outskirts of Nairobi.

They parted ways at dusk and each headed home. Stanley got to her parents but Reagan did not, and nobody knew what had happened to him. Nobody had even seen him after they parted with Stanley.

Kerubo knew something was amiss when night fell and the hours dragged on minus her son. It would be over in a few minutes, she thought to herself. Maybe Reagan was just playing truant, and for that he will have a hiding when he got home.

Well, no one received any hiding that night, because poor Reagan did not make it home. He did not show up the following day, and the next, and the next… for a month.
Kerubo was undergoing the most crushing test of motherhood, her patience and strength stretched beyond limit. She became an emotional wreck, the spring in her step replaced by a tired, given-up stoop.

BROKEN WOMAN

“I went to all media houses to announce that my son was missing,” she remembered last week. “I even had somebody upload his picture on social media, and then I distributed posters to churches, schools, bars… all public places. I wanted to find my son before it was too late.”

When she walked into our offices on the cold Thursday of June 26, Kerubo was a broken woman, her eyes red and puffy from nights of crying herself to sleep, and her face tired from the frustration of the uncertainty of what had befallen her son.

Clutching a photo of the boy she had named after Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, Kerubo pleaded with us: “Please, help me find my boy!”

ALMOST GAVE UP

She was almost giving up. This, she had imagined, would be a nightmare soon ended, but it was dragging on for so long. Her energy was spent, and now she needed help.

“Please, help me,” she repeated.

And then, as beaten as she had walked into Nation Centre, she walked away and disappeared into the thick Nairobi crowd; just another woman up and about. Just another woman who had forgotten to comb her hair and iron her scarf in the morning. Just another miserable Nairobi woman.

Meanwhile, somewhere in this bustling African metropolis, Reagan was going through the biggest nightmare of his life. He had woken up from a daze to find himself locked in a cold, dimly lit room. And he was not alone as there were several other boys here too. All haggard, stressed and and lying on a floor covered only with sacks.

He waited for the nightmare to end, but it dragged on for hours. And then the reality hit home. He had been kidnapped, and this was a holding pen. The young, terrified boys inside the dank room were not just victims of a crime that is sweeping across the nation, but were also being held for ransom… or worse.

But, how did he get here?

A month after he disappeared, and a month after her mother walked into Nation Centre, both child and mother came calling on us last week.

They had been re-united in the most dramatic of ways — which we shall get into in a moment.

Reagan, a bubbly young man who looked a bit confused by the world around him, volunteered his story.

“The last thing I remember was walking home after a great football match with my friend. A black saloon car with tinted windows drove slowly behind me; and then, in a flash, two men got out, grabbed me and forced a piece of cloth onto my face that knocked me out. I woke up in a room with many other young boys.”

He still does not know who those men were or where he was being held, and that is a puzzle he hopes the police will help him solve. He speaks softly and shyly, vividly describing his ordeal in the hands of four kidnappers.

He remembers that he and the other captive boys were kept in a house with a sizeable compound fenced with iron sheets. The house, he says, was in a “quiet estate”, and there were several cars parked within the compound.

“There were about 25 boys aged between 11 and 16 held in the compound by four kidnappers, one of whom was dreadlocked. They fed us on bread and water and often whipped us,” he says.

The kidnappers spoke in a language Reagan did not understand and stayed in a separate room, where they cooked their food and drunk beer.

PRANKSTERS AND FRAUDSTERS

The 30 days over which Reagan was missing was the most trying time for his mother, who received hundreds of calls from friends and strangers, but pranksters and fraudsters took advantage of her situation as well.

One woman, for instance, called Kerubo and told her that she was living with Reagan in Thika, so could she send her airtime so that they could keep in touch before she delivered the boy?

“I reported the matter to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the woman was traced to Muhoroni. She later apologised for lying, but it made me realise that not everyone cares about you or your situation. Here you are, crying your heart out, yet some people are ready to take advantage of your situation,” says Kerubo.

On June 29, two men called Kerubo and told her that they had her son, and that they would only release him in exchange of a Sh1 million ransom. She was crushed. There was no way she could raise that amount, and they were not in the mood to negotiate down.

They told her the money should be delivered within hours, otherwise they would kill her son. She reported the call to the police, who traced its origin to the Naivasha Maximum Security Prison.

As criminals latched on the opportunity to make money, Kerubo and her husband were busy combing police stations, hospitals and mortuaries in search of any clue to what had befallen their son. But she says that, even as she let mortuary attendants draw body after body of young boys, she had this feeling that her son was okay; that they would be reunited soon.

“I never allowed myself to lose faith,” she says. “I knew that had he been dead, we would have already found his body. The longer he stayed, the stronger my faith grew. My motherly instincts told me that my son was alive and well, and that God would bring him back to me.”

Reagan, on the other hand, says that his resolve and determination to go back home was what kept him going for the one month he was held captive. There were boys who had been held there for months longer than him, so when he learnt that there were some who were plotting an escape, he told them he wanted in. They obliged. As long as he kept his cool, he could join them.

DARING ESCAPE

On July 17, Reagan and four other boys scampered out of the room they were being held in and made their way into the vast compound outside. Luck was on their side as all the four kidnappers had been distracted by a lorry delivering supplies — he says he does not know what exactly they were delivering — to the compound.

“We hid behind the lorry and waited for it to start moving. Then slowly we moved behind it as it left the compound. Once we were outside, we run as fast as we could. I was following the older boys because I did not know where I was and where I was going,” he says.

Together they walked almost overnight until they found themselves at the Muthurwa bus terminus in Nairobi. They spent the rest of the night at the stalls in Muthurwa as they waited for daybreak. At around 9am the following morning, Reagan approached a stranger who was on his way to work and requested him to call his mother.

STRANGER CALLED

At this point, his mother takes over: “A stranger called me and asked if my son had been missing. I did not want to get my hopes high, so I demanded to speak to my son first before entertaining the conversation.

“The man handed the phone to Reagan, and immediately he called me ‘Mum’ I began to cry. You can’t forget the voice of your son, no matter how long he goes missing. They had found him!”

Kerubo requested the stranger to direct Reagan to a bus stage and ensure that he takes a matatu home.

“At the terminal, I called one of my friends who works as a tout there and asked him if he could see Reagan. He answered in the affirmative. I was so excited that I wanted to hop onto a motorcycle immediately and rush to the city centre and pick my son, but my friend told me there was no need; it was all over. He would ensure Reagan boarded a matatu and got home safe,”

The one-hour wait for her son at the Ruai Welkim stage seemed longer than a day’s. And then, after eternity, a matatu pulled over. Kerubo watched from a distance, struggling to breathe.

The door opened. Kerubo felt her heart jump to somewhere near her throat. Some movement in the matatu. The tom-tom of Kerubo’s heart now a thud-thud. And, finally, a scrawny figure jumped out.

Kerubo’s eyes widened as she let out a wild scream. Mother and son rushed towards each other, the mother an elephantine reservoir of energy; the son a scrubby, tired, confused and teary wreck.

They did not embrace, but more like crashed into each other. And then hugged and kissed and cried and laughed and got lost in the emotional moment.

LOST WEIGHT

“He had lost weight and it was evident that he wasn’t feeding well. His eyes were sunken and he looked sad and feeble,” says Kerubo.

Unable to hide her joy, and because it takes a village to raise a son, Kerubo called her neighbours and friends to celebrate Reagan’s return. Last week at Nation Centre, she said the trauma had made her son timid, fidgety and paranoid, and so he is currently seeing a counsellor and is yet to go back to school.

But, even after his safe return home, Reagan’s mother fears for her son’s life. She fears that the kidnappers may strike again, or even put the other children left behind at a greater risk.

For now, Reagan is happily reunited with his younger sister Nicole and his parents. He is happy to be home, but his heart bleeds for the 20 other boys he left behind, and hopes that they are as lucky as he was to be reunited with their parents.