Ms Fatuma Muktar Hassan at Nation Centre in Nairobi on November 19, 2024. (inset) Her missing son Abdikhadir Omar Shire.
On September 25, 2024, Mr Abdikhadir Omar Shire arrived in Eastleigh, Nairobi, with the hopes of getting a job. He hoped to help his ailing mother and six siblings in Dadaab in Garissa County.
For a young man brought up in his village in North Eastern, arriving in the capital city meant achieving some of the dreams he had always pursued. He secured a job in Emali town in Makueni County through the help of a family member in Eastleigh.
As he travelled to Emali, Mr Omar, his family said, was in constant communication with his mother Fatuma Hassan who was in Garissa. However, on that fateful day at 7pm, his phone was unreachable.
Ms Fatuma told Nation. Africa that the unanswered calls left her disturbed and she immediately contacted her son’s employer.
“The lady who had taken my son to Emali told me she left him at the shop where he was being trained on stock taking and how to handle customers,” she says.
A shopkeeper said Omar was forcibly abducted at 7pm by masked men who forced him into a white double-cabin pick-up truck and drove off.
The shopkeeper said he unsuccessfully tried to attract the attention of passersby to stop the abduction. They asked the men to identify themselves.
The family made a missing person report at Emali Police Station under the OB number 35/25/09/2024. According to the family, he was last seen in Eastleigh.
In November, Ms Fatuma said she was forced to travel from Dadaab to Nairobi to join a group of his family and friends who had been searching.
They visited the Directorate of Criminal Investigations at Kiambu Road and the anti-terror police unit in Nairobi.
“We provided them the images, the OB number and the details of the incident but nothing is forthcoming so far,” Ms Fatuma said.
Ms Fatuma said she regrets letting her eldest son travel to Nairobi on the fateful day.
“He is just a calm boy. He went through school in Dadaab. We had high hopes that he would help his siblings. We do not know what to do,” Ms Fatuma said.
Her efforts to get in contact with local leaders including National Intelligence Service Director Noordin Haji and Environment Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, she said, have proved futile.
“It is painful and it would be much better if we are given his body so that we can bury him rather than going through this agony of not knowing where he is. I just want my son alive or dead,” she said.
Omar, the family said, had never had a criminal record. Ms Fatuma claims that her son was abducted by the policemen as he was returning from the mosque to the shop where he worked.
