Six months after being kidnapped off the streets of Nairobi, a Kenyan lawmaker reappeared Sunday night, dumped outside his home by masked men, alive but weak, his body bearing the signs of six months in captivity.
Yusuf Hussein Ahmed, a Member of County Assembly (MCA) for Della Anole Ward in Wajir County, was last seen on Sept. 13, 2023, when armed men intercepted his Uber on Enterprise Road, forcing him into an unmarked SUV and disappearing into the night. His family waited in agony, holding protests, filing legal petitions, and clinging to false hope—twice believing mutilated bodies found in Lake Yahud might be his.
Now, he is back. But his silence is deafening.
On Sunday at 9:30 p.m., masked men dumped Ahmed outside his Nairobi residence and vanished as quickly as they had appeared. They offered no explanations. No words. No demands.
“He was taken by unknown men in September. Last night, they simply left him in the dark,” said Adam Keynan Wehliye, a fellow Wajir County legislator.
Ahmed was rushed to a medical facility, where doctors found him malnourished and sleep-deprived but stable. Wehliye, who has been closely involved in the case, didn’t mince words.
“There are no answers. Only questions. And the government? They’re still pretending nothing happened.”
Kenyan authorities, accused of apathy or worse, complicity, stalled at every turn. In October, a High Court order demanded Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja produce Ahmed—dead or alive. The police ignored it. Investigators pursued leads, but every path led to a dead end. DNA tests on a mutilated body found in Lake Yahud proved it was not Ahmed but another Somali-Kenyan man, his face beaten beyond recognition, his ears and nose severed.
Forensic experts confirmed blunt force trauma had killed him, but the mystery only deepened. Meanwhile, key evidence in Ahmed’s case vanished. Requests for CCTV footage were denied, phone records disappeared, and a trail of silence followed every inquiry. In Wajir, the outrage was growing. Supporters marched through the streets carrying signs with Ahmed’s name. “Where is Yusuf?” they demanded. The question hung over the country, unanswered.
Meanwhile, in Wajir, rage boiled over. Supporters marched, carrying signs with Ahmed’s name. “Where is Yusuf?” turned into a national question.
Ahmed’s family never stopped searching—but their pleas fell on deaf ears.
“If he hadn’t been dumped outside last night, would they have ever found him?” his sister, Halima Hussein, asked. “They never told us anything. Not once.”
Their father, blind for 20 years, had waited for his son’s return. He received no answers, only silence.
No arrests have been made. No one has claimed responsibility.
And the Kenyan government? It remains silent.
Ahmed’s case isn’t isolated. Authorities recently found another missing man—an elderly Somali-Kenyan named Omar Mohamed Nur, also known as Omar Duwac. He had been missing for over a year before he resurfaced in Isiolo.
Wehliye confirmed that Nur and Ahmed were from the same district, Ceel-Dhaas, but dismissed speculation of a link beyond that.
“They were both kidnapped, held for months, then mysteriously reappeared,” he said. “What does that tell you?”
Forced disappearances have long been a dark reality in Kenya. Ahmed’s case is the latest in a string of high-profile abductions tied to shadowy networks operating in plain sight.
His family wants justice. His supporters want answers.
