The relatives of a Kenyan police officer who went missing while working in Haiti have spoken of their anguish and anger at Kenyan authorities over a lack of definitive information about what has happened to him.
Benedict Kuria and some colleagues were ambushed in March by suspected gang members. Haitian media reported that he had died, but Kenya’s police service says a search is continuing.
“We’ve tried many times to get information from the government, but they’ve refused,” said Kuria’s wife, Miriam Watima. “We don’t know what to do any more.”
Hundreds of Kenyan officers have been posted to Haiti as part of a US and UN-backed mission to help police in the Caribbean country get to grips with rampant gang violence. More than a million people have been forced from their homes in a relentless cycle of indiscriminate killings, kidnappings, gang rapes and arson.
Kuria’s case has reignited public concern over Kenya’s involvement in the multinational security support mission (MSS), which started last year and was the subject of intense domestic public and legal scrutiny from the outset.
‘We don’t know what to do any more’. Photograph: Edwin Ndeke/The Guardian
In a search for answers, Kuria’s family filed a court petition in June that listed the attorney-general, the inspector general of police and various ministers as respondents. A Nairobi court has scheduled a preliminary court appearance for September but the family, who want the matter treated with urgency, have called for the session to be brought forward.
“We entrusted our son with the government,” said Kuria’s mother, Jacinta Kabiru. “They should give us the information.”
Kuria, a 33-year-old administration police officer, joined the MSS last July. On 26 March the MSS said he was “unaccounted for” after an ambush the day before on a team who had gone to assist the recovery of a Haitian police vehicle stuck in a ditch that it suspected had been dug by gangs.