Government silence on missing policeman baffles family

Jecinta Wanjiku Kabiru (center) is distraught following the disappearance of her son Benedict Kabiru who is among the Kenyan police in Haiti. [File, Standard]

The family of the Kenyan missing policeman in Haiti has called on the government to speak the truth about their lost son.

The family said that the government knows the status of their son, Benedict Kabiru, but has remained tight-lipped, leaving them in agony for two months.

Kabiru's aunt, Hannah Wambui, said the family is going through a hard time since the disappearance of their kin.

"The government knows the exact position on this issue, they know if Kabiru is alive or dead but they chose to keep quiet over the issue," she said on Saturday during a mass at the family home in Thamanda, Kikuyu Constituency.

"It has reached a point where we are ready to receive any news now, we feel ready to be told if he is alive or even dead but the continuous silence by the government is killing us slowly," she said.

Wambui said that they are unable to attend to their day-to-day business as the weight of the matter is weighing heavily on their hearts.

"We are greatly tortured, the mental torture and anguish has morphed to this level of acceptance of any outcome, we can't sleep especially after we show the horrific video and photos that were circulating online, we humbly beg the government through police department to come out and tell us the true position," she said.

She told The Standard that the family has been visiting Nyayo House in Nairobi in search of information about their missing kin.

"We send a family emissary to Nyayo House with the hope of getting the slightest of information and each day turns out to be another frustrating day, at times there is no one who will speak to us, we go home dejected. The government should consider our feelings as human beings. Kabiru worked for them we should not be kept in this kind of darkeness," she said.

So concerned is the family that they have sought the services of a lawyer to help the family get answers from the government to end their agony.

Kabiru's mother said that her hope was pegged on the missing son and the family is devastated.

The police officer went missing two months ago during an ambush in Haiti.

The first contingent that served with him is due to return back to the country.