Around 10am on June 22, after taking breakfast, three-year-old Franklin Gicheru asked his parents if he could join his friends who were playing outside the gate in Zimmerman, Nairobi.
That was the last time his parents saw him.
Three agonising weeks later, James Mwangi Gicheru and his wife still hopes to see their son alive.
Each waking day, the couple hopes their boy will show up just as he vanished.
Every morning, James heads to the gate, stands there and stares in the distance. He yearns to see his “jovial and gentle” son again.
His wife Loice Wamaitha walks to Kasarani Police Station for any updates on the case of her son’s disappearance.
On the fateful day, James says, he was notified by a neighbour that his son was seen walking away with an unknown woman. The neighbour thought she was a relative of the family.
“But owing to the rise in the cases of children disappearing in the area, she called to make sure,” he recalls.
“Yet even before I picked the call, the neighbour told me, the lady had already disappeared with my son,” a teary-eyed James recounts.
Worried, the father launched a frantic search for his son. He first searched in the neighbourhood, all the while hoping that his son “wasn’t going to be part of the statistics of missing children”.
He checked with the neighbours, and then down all the streets, to no avail.
“After about an hour of fruitless search, I reported to the area chief, then later went to Kasarani Police Station,” he recalls.
Franklin’s disappearance is not an isolated case. The capital is witnessing a surge in cases of kidnapping and murder of children that strikes fear in the hearts of parents.
The question is whether there is child trafficking ring on the loose. In the past three months, at least a child has been reported missing every two or three days.
While there is no centralised database by the police on the number of children who are kidnapped daily, a database from Missing Child Kenya, a portal that keeps track of children who are missing, reports that in April, 28 cases were recorded by the NGO.
The portal admits a missing case once a complainant has obtained an occurrence book (OB) number from the police. Of the 28, the organisation indicated, 14 are still missing.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, on July 5, while speaking at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi, said the increasing cases of abduction are worrisome and a threat to national security.
“We will not only step up. But we will deploy a special and aggressive squad with resources to deal with this issue,” the CS said.
While some of the children reported having gone missing have been lucky to be reunited with their parents, others are turning up dead. James hopes his son is alive.
“I am not sure I wronged anyone. If I did, please forgive me for the sake of my baby,” Franklin’s mother pleads. “Help us find our boy.”
“He lit our house with his smile and laughter,” James adds, “Now the house feels strange and cold without my boy’s giggles. We dearly miss him.”
James works as a caretaker of the building outside where his son was snatched. That means he is not "wealthy", which, ordinarily would have made kidnapping the boy unattractive to ransom seekers.
James says his wife has since developed “ailments that she did not have previously”, and her deteriorating health worries him.
“I could lose them both,” he says.
According to Kasarani Sub County Police Commander Peter Mwanzo, only two out of three reported cases of missing children have been resolved.
“A man and a woman are in our custody and the matter is before the court. The hearing begins on Tuesday, July 14,” Mr Mwanzo said.
Meanwhile, James sends out a message of hope:
“I have watched many sunsets since you left. With each greying of the sky, I keep hoping to bump into you, Frankie.”
