Members of the public intervened on Wednesday morning as unknown people attempted to abduct one of the divers involved in the retrieval of bodies at the Kware dumpsite in Mukuru Kwa Njenga earlier this year.
Taking to social media to report the incident, the Mukuru Community Justice Center stated that the unknown men suspected to be police officers tried to forcefully take the diver away while at the Kware Rapture Church.
"Pastor Wa Vijana, one of the volunteers of #MukuruDarkestHour diver has been rescued by members of the public as he was being abducted a few minutes ago by unknown men suspected to be police officers at Kware Rapture Church. They have taken his phone. He has escaped using his bodaboda," part of the statement shared on Wednesday at 7:00 am read.
"We condemn this act in the strongest terms possible, the state should stop profiling, intimidating, trailing, and intimidating the volunteers who helped in retrieving the bodies at Kware. The government failed to do their work that's why the volunteers did it for the love of our country."
This disturbing report came barely two weeks after the center released a report four months after the incident dubbed ‘Kware The Aftermath’ outlining police brutality and neglect from the national government.
In the report, they also revealed that they had not received any counseling after undertaking the traumatising exercise and that instead of being supported by law enforcement officers, they had been subjected to intimidation.
“After retrieving nine bodies on the first day, protest erupted in the community and police started to engage Mukuru residents in running battles. The cases of police brutality increased,” a representative from the Centre stated in the report.
“As if finding bodies in the quarries was not traumatizing enough, 15 people were shot by the police officers from Mukuru Police Station with one person losing his life as a result.”
They went on to state that there had been several attempts to stop them from searching. One even stated he had been threatened with an arrest.
Two weeks into the exercise, they stated that they had been ordered to stop by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to give way to the Nairobi Government disaster management team.
Following the discovery of the bodies in July, police swooped in to arrest their main suspect, Collins Jumaisi, accusing him of first killing his wife before going on a spree to kill more.
Under police interrogation, Jumaisi admitted to committing a total of 42 murders, a statement he later recanted citing police intimidation.
Barely a month after his arrest, he escaped police custody in the company of 12 other inmates, and efforts to recapture him have been futile, leaving the matter unresolved four months in.
