The disappearance of Caroline Mwatha, a Human Rights Defender from Nairobi’s Dandora estate, has caught the attention of Amnesty International which is now asking police to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.
Ms. Mwatha is reported to have gone missing on Wednesday, February 6 with her disappearance being reported at Buru Buru Police Station on Friday, February 8.
Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has offered a Sh300,000 cash reward for anyone with information on missing human rights activist Caroline Mwatha.
Sonko appealed to anyone with details to contact the nearest police station or the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
According to her friends, she was last seen at her home in Dandora on Wednesday morning, but since then her phone has remained off with her whereabouts still unknown.
“Amnesty International Kenya calls upon the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and National Police Service to thoroughly investigate Carol’s disappearance, establish her whereabouts and deliver to her friends and family,” said Irũngũ Houghton, Amnesty International’s Executive Director, in a statement to newsrooms on Sunday.
The Centers and Caro respond to sex trafficking, sexual violence, unlawful police killings, joblessness, hopeless and anger but also planting trees along Mathare river, establishing business and breaking down ethnic divisions. That is why we must #FindCarolineMwatha
— Irũngũ Houghton (@irunguhoughton) February 11, 2019
“We call on any person who may have information on the disappearance of Carol Mwatha to share such information with the nearest police station or Dandora Social Justice Centre on 0722746164,” he said adding that, “we urge Kenyans to continue using social media and all other means to help #FindCarolineMwatha.”
She is believed to have been documenting cases of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings, including the murder of six Dandora residents in October last year.
The Six men killed by police were suspected to have attacked and raped a woman before police shot them dead on Sunday morning in Dandora, Nairobi.However contradicting information had surfaced indicating police had shot the wrong people.
Deadly Force is the most complete database on death from police encounters collected and collated from media stories that quote police crime reports, Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) reports, and reference records from human rights organisations.
Some 13 people had been killed by police in Dandora estate in Nairobi as at September 30 2018.