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.

Sources within human rights organisations believe the victims were beaten with rubber batons and had their genitals squeezed. They said the assaults appeared to have been carried out in a way that left no cuts or other visible wounds on their bodies.

A senior police source denied that officers were responsible for the abuse, instead pointing the finger at other state security agencies.

"Police do not have the budget to abduct people and hold them in seclusion for days. Anyone arrested by police is booked into a station and taken to court. This is not the work of the police,” the source said.

The source nevertheless alleged that two senior police commanders act as a link between the police and the security agency they claim is behind the abductions and torture.

“They do not report to their superiors. They have a team that reports only to them and operates outside the normal police chain of command. These are the officers who abduct Kenyans and hand them over to the security agency,” the source alleged.

For those tracking the disappearances, the pattern has become grimly familiar. Survivors and relatives describe a recurring sequence: a person is seized in public, disappears for days, then resurfaces abandoned by the roadside or outside a hospital, disoriented, injured and traumatised.

Witnesses say Lichuma was abducted on June 25 after attending a commemoration of past protests. Days later, he was found near Kenyatta National Hospital in a sedated and traumatised state.

Reached for comment, Police Spokesperson Muchiri Nyaga denied the existence of such a unit, insisting that police officers operate within the law.

“I would want him (our source) to share his findings. I am also interested in knowing about the unit,” Nyaga said.

Nyaga added that he was unaware of the alleged senior police officers said to be commanding the unit, saying he would also like to know their identities.

Survivors interviewed by human rights groups say they were blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs, and held in separate rooms to prevent them from seeing or communicating with other detainees.

They described the rooms as bare, with no mattresses or blankets, forcing them to sleep on the floor. They also said they were given only one meagre meal a day, described as boiled cabbage, and were denied any contact with their families or lawyers.

Those who survived say they were held in houses tucked away in forested or secluded areas, far from roads and human activity, where the isolation helped conceal their detention.

Sources within human rights organisations say victims' accounts and reconstructed timelines point to the use of isolated safe houses rather than formal police stations during the initial phase of detention. They allege the captors took deliberate steps to avoid leaving any public trail.

Our source claims there is a special team drawn from NIS and the DCI that targeted high-profile social media influencers and activists, with NIS providing technical support and surveillance of online accounts.

This is consistent with allegations by high profile Kenyans like former Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi who in January 2025,  publicly alleged that the NIS was behind the abduction of his son and described how the boy was allegedly held by NIS operatives until political intervention secured his release. 

The National Police Service has often distanced itself from such disappearances, urging the public to report missing persons while simultaneously denying involvement in extrajudicial detentions. At times the police narrative has conflicted with survivors' testimony and investigative reporting, deepening mistrust. In Lichuma's recent case, police said investigations were ongoing even as activists and rights monitors demanded urgent, independent probes.

The government's security agencies have historically operated with a degree of opacity that complicates oversight. The NIS, in particular, is frequently described as a secretive body whose activities are difficult for the public to scrutinise, a feature that contributes to an environment where enforced disappearances can occur without clear accountability.

According to our source, the two police commanders report directly to a civilian who is close to the circle of power. They do not report to their respective heads in the police force. Similarly, the commanders have a group of officers who report only to them. There are two team leaders who head the group, and they take instructions from the commanders to pass on to the officers.

The officers report to no one else apart from their team leads and are not involved in day-to-day operations at their respective stations. It is the security agency that identifies "problematic people" or people who have the potential to be problematic. Once they gather all the information on them, the security agency sends this to the two commanders, who in turn pass it down to the team leads. From there, with a target firmly on their backs, the possibility of escaping their dragnet is next to zero.

This shadow structure operates completely outside the normal chain of command, creating a parallel system of surveillance and enforcement that answers only to the highest echelons of power. The officers involved are effectively insulated from regular oversight, meaning their actions are neither logged in official records nor subject to internal police reviews. This not only breeds a culture of impunity but also ensures that any operation.

Whether justified or not can be carried out with total deniability by the formal institutions. Those flagged by the security agency are often unaware they are being watched until it is far too late, and with no paper trail or accountability mechanism in place, there is virtually no recourse for the targets, no matter how innocent they may be. Once they train their guns on you, only God can save you.