I pray my boys are alive and happy somewhere

If Elizabeth Mwahu knew that that Sunday about seven years ago was the last time she would see her beautiful boys, maybe she would have done things differently.

“Not knowing where my babies, Samuel and James, are for seven years has been a never-healing wound in my soul,” Elizabeth Mwahu tells me, her soft voice wavering with emotion. “When your loved one dies, you get to bury them and lay flowers at their grave...you get closure. But when a loved one is missing, that door is never closed. It is pain that I wouldn’t even wish on my worst enemy. It is a living hell.”

On October 28, 2012, Elizabeth’s four-year-old twin sons – Samuel Muiruri (Sam) and James Mwahu (Jamo) - went missing. She turns the events of that fateful day over and over in her mind, searching for clues that her world was about to be upended, or even more importantly, one that could lead to finding the boys. A photo of the boys, as infants, is her phone’s screensaver. That’s all she has of her sons now, photographs and memories.