Family of Ethiopian trader abducted last month pleads for help

Samson Teklemichael (inset) was abducted on Loitoktok Road, Nairobi. Right, his wife Milen Halefom. [Fred Kagonye, Standard]

For the last three weeks, Milen Halefom, wife of Ethiopian national Samson Teklemichael, who was abducted on Loitoktok Road, Nairobi, in broad daylight, has not known peace.

She does not know who abducted him on the evening of November 19 and the only clue she has is from videos taken by passers-by and posted on social media.

“We do not know where he is and we have not heard anything about him,” she said in an interview.

From the videos, someone believed to be Teklemichael can be seen fighting his abductors and can be heard telling passers-by to keep recording the ordeal.

A traffic police officer is then seen approaching and stopping his motorcycle. The abductors can be seen taking Teklemichael and bundling him into a waiting Subaru Forester.

A search on the National Transport and Safety Authority portal shows the number plate belongs to a lorry, which is owned by a Kenyan and a local bank.

It has been three weeks since he was abducted. And the men who took him, despite being caught on camera, are yet to be identified.

There are CCTV cameras less than 100 metres from the abduction spot. And Milen said investigations had not moved an inch despite several follow-ups with the Kilimani Police Station.

She said on that fateful day, Teklemichael was coming back home after having lunch with their American friends who were in the country to visit their families.

“I was to go with him but I remained behind so he went alone,” she said.

The couple has lived in Kenya for more than 16 years and they ran a liquefied petroleum business between Kenya and Ethiopia.

“My tears have dried up, my kids do not have tears anymore, you can see the pain in their eyes,” she said.

The couple has three children, a boy and two girls aged between four and 14 years.

“My children are traumatised. They do not go to school. Those who did it are not torturing me or my husband; they are torturing the children,” she said.

She said they had never had a run-in with the law in Kenya or Ethiopia.

The fight to try and get him back has ended up in the corridors of justice where they filed a case.

The family, through lawyer Stanley Kangahi, is seeking an order to have the Inspector General of Police produce the missing man in court.

“I am asking Kenyans to help me find my husband, please,” she said.

There are fears that Teklemichael may have been deported to Ethiopia. And Milen said she visited the Ethiopian Embassy and was told they had written to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but until today, she is yet to hear from them.

Milen said she did not feel safe since her husband was taken. “I feel like I cannot speak what I want, I feel like they can come and take me. What will happen to my children?” she asked.

Teklemichael joins a growing list of foreigners who have been abducted in Kenya.

Stella Waithera and her Iranian husband Ahmed Golabi were kidnapped and detained for more than five days by the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit as they waited to board a Turkish Airlines flight to Iran.

Somali-American businessman Bashir Mohammed went missing minutes after he left the Miale Lounge in Kilimani, Nairobi. His mutilated body was found a week later at the Kerugoya Level 5 Hospital.

Selahaddin Gulen was abducted as he left the Directorate of Criminal Investigations head offices. Twenty-six days later, Turkish authorities presented him, saying he had been arrested in a foreign country.

Biafra separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu disappeared from Kenya in July. He would later reappear in a Nigerian court.

Two critics of the South Sudanese government, lawyer Dong Samuel Luak and writer Aggrey Idri Ezibon, were kidnapped in broad daylight from Nairobi on January 23 and 24, 2017.

They were moved in a charter flight to South Sudan where they were killed in a ranch on January 30.