From blindfolds to handcuffs and starvation: How state abductees are tortured in secret safe houses

Police officers forcefully arrest a protestor during the Gen Z protest anniversary in Nairobi on June 25 2026. [Courtesy, Standard]

Davis Lichuma and other victims of what rights groups describe as a pattern of enforced disappearances resurfaced over the past week battered, traumatised and recounting strikingly similar accounts of their ordeal.

They said they were held incommunicado, blindfolded and with their hands tied in separate rooms inside a house deep in a forested area, far from roads or any sign of human activity. They were fed only one meal a day, consisting of boiled cabbage, and slept on cold floors without blankets. Every few hours, their captors allegedly entered the rooms to interrogate and torture them.