Four-year-old Mary Njeri Ng’ang’a was outside playing with other children near her family’s compound when she went missing.
For the past four weeks, Mr Antony Ng’ang’a has been making trips to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation(DCI) headquarters in search of answers about his missing daughter.
Every week, he boards a matatu before dawn and travels nearly 200 kilometres to the DCI offices, where detectives from the Children's Department have taken over investigations into the disappearance of four-year-old Mary Njeri.
Njeri went missing on June 11, while playing with her friends outside their home in Pipeline Estate in Nakuru County and has never been seen again.
The trips, according to Mr Ng’ang’a, have become a painful routine, despite clinging to hope that detectives will finally reunite him with his daughter.
Four-year-old Mary Njeri Ng’ang’a was outside playing with other children near her family’s compound when she went missing.
According to Mr Ng’ang’a, last week a man contacted him and demanded ransom for the child’s release.
After negotiation, the caller agreed to reduce the amount and instructed Ng’ang’a to send the money immediately.
However, he was hesitant to send the money and requested to speak to his daughter or be sent a recent video or photograph proving that she was alive and in the caller’s custody.
Instead of providing the proof, the caller switched off his phone.
“He told me that my daughter is within Nakuru under custody of someone else and if I wanted to see her again I should send the money. I do not know whether he truly has my child or whether he was trying to extort me money. I just pleaded with him to release my daughter,” he said.
He said that he informed detectives of the phone call and is now being treated as a lead in their investigation in an effort to establish the caller’s identity and trace his location.
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Anthony says the wait has been agonising, with every visit to the DCI offices ending without the breakthrough they desperately hope for. As a family, they have now resorted to prayers for her safe return.
“The four weeks have not been easy for us; we have been searching for her everywhere but we have not succeeded. My only prayer is to hold my daughter again. I do not care how long it takes, I just want her back. Detectives told me that I should be patient,” he said.
Recounting the moments before his daughter disappeared, he said he had just returned home from work on the said evening and was relaxing in the sitting room as his wife prepared supper.
He said Njeri, who was wearing a brown hooded jacket over a red top, blue leggings, and green Crocs, requested to step outside to play while she waited for her older brother, who had been sent to a nearby shop.
According to Ng’ang’a, when his son came back, he instructed him not to lock the gate when he returned because Njeri was still playing just outside the house.
A short while later, when he went looking for her, he realised she was nowhere to be seen, alerting his parents, who asked him to look for her in the neighbourhood.
He said that the disappearance prompted a frantic search by relatives and neighbours. When efforts proved futile, the matter was reported at Mwariki Police Station.
According to Mr Ng’ang’a, the minor was last seen in the company of a woman and a man who had been contracted to plough a nearby farm. The two are well known in the estate.
He said that after visiting his house, they found his wife, who informed them that he had not come home, prompting them to inquire from the church since he was a choir member.
After further inquiry, a bodaboda rider revealed that the man and the woman who was carrying the minor requested his services as they wanted to be ferried to another estate, but they did not agree on cost.
“We traced the woman, but she denied carrying a child, insisting she had only been carrying a bag. We called the police, who later arrested both the woman and the caller's wife as investigations began,” he recalled
Since then, Ng’ang’a says the family has searched extensively across Pipeline and neighbouring estates, hospitals and children's homes with hopes of finding Njeri alive.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Headquarters along Kiambu Road.
On June 16, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) appealed to the members of the public to help with information that will lead to the arrest of a suspect linked to the disappearance.
On their social media pages, DCI posted a photo of the suspect linked to the disappearance and appealed to the members of the public to volunteer information, saying they have launched a probe into the incident.
According to DCI, as the family desperately searched for their child, the caller is alleged to have compounded their anguish by attempting to negotiate a ransom.
Acting swiftly on intelligence leads, detectives from the Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU), working jointly with the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau (CRIB) at DCI Headquarters and Officers from Mwariki Police Station, trailed the caller to a plot in the Quarry area of Rongai.
However, upon noticing the detectives closing in on him, the caller fled into nearby slums and has since remained at large.
“A search of the room where he had spent the night led to the recovery of a mobile phone, personal belongings, and a mother-and-child clinic booklet bearing the particulars of another minor from Nakuru County, raising more questions about the caller’s activities. Anyone with information that may assist in his arrest or help establish his whereabouts
Following her disappearance, residents stormed Mwariki police station and also marched to Nakuru Central Police Station, demanding answers over her disappearance, lamenting over what they termed as the slow pace of investigation.
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