The family of Shaffi Noor is agonising over the whereabouts of their son, who was abducted by suspected Anti-Terror Police Unit officers in Garissa on December 29, 2021.
The family wants the state to help them find their son, who had just been acquitted of terror-related charges by a Garissa law court when he was abducted by the very officers who had taken him to court.
“The magistrate had said he is innocent and freed him. But the officers who had taken him to court grabbed him right outside the court and disappeared with him.
“They were about four officers and were wearing face masks because it was during the Covid time,” Ahmed Noor, Shaffi’s uncle, said.
The then 21-year-old Shaffi had been linked to terror group al Shabaab. He had just completed high school in 2020 and had been bought a car to use as a taxi by his parents.
In the course of his taxi business in Wajir, he met and fell in love with a Somali woman.
The woman asked him to buy a phone for her, which he did.
She also asked him to buy a Safaricom line for her, which he obliged, registering the line in his own name using his own national ID card.
It turned out the woman was a Shabaab bride who was only looking for a way to get a Safaricom line and a phone to use.
The woman told Shaffi that if he wanted to marry her, he should talk to her father, who would engage his father for marriage talks.
The woman then left to her place near the Somali border.
Shaffi would call her only for a man’s voice to answer the phone one day, identifying himself as the woman’s husband and telling him off.
It is this phone phone link that landed Shaffi in trouble with the ATPU.
On Saturday, in Mombasa’s Majengo area, four years later, the family is still holding onto the ever-slimming hope of seeing him alive.
The family said they have been running to every scene where bodies have been found, including River Yala and Shakahola, hoping to at least get their son’s body for burial.
“The mother has been ailing ever since because she has not been eating or sleeping well since her son was taken,” Ahmed said.
Mama Jamila, a relative, said since it was during an electioneering year, and politicians in Wajir used Shaffi’s case as a campaign tool for election, promising to help get Shaffi back.
“Once they won their various elective seats, none has even mentioned the case,” she said.
The fact that they have not found his body gives them hopes that Shaffi is still alive.
“We have seen that abducted people are now being released. The Wajir MCA who was abducted has been released after more than four months in captivity,” Jamila said.
“We ask Ruto to also intervene and ensure our son is released because we strongly believe he is in the hands of security apparatus.”
