Refugees at a market in Daadab. Human traffickers are said to be praying on young refugees.
Hamida Adan* is lucky to be back home in Mandera County after a botched trip to Yemen, which has now been linked to a thriving human trafficking syndicate in North Eastern Kenya.
Hamida says she learnt of a well-paying job from a friend whom she connected with on TikTok after weeks of chatting.
The TikTok friend offered to carter for her transport from Mandera to Yemen, via Somalia.
“After agreeing, I was introduced to a taxi driver in Mandera town who linked me with another taxi operator in Bula Hawa, a town in Somalia,” she told the Saturday Nation.
“I left Mandera on July 8. From Bula Hawa, another driver took me to Dholo in Somalia.”
Hamida’s mother, who sought anonymity, said she reported her daughter as missing and a search ensued.
Through a taxi driver in Mandera, the family identified the vehicle that took Hamida to Somalia.
“Soon after the driver was arrested, he admitted to having dropped my daughter in Bula Hawa. We learnt that Hamida had proceeded to Dholo where she boarded a plane to Mogadishu,” the woman added.
Through the arrested taxi driver, Kenyan security agents found a mobile phone number that was used to track Hamida to the Somali capital city.
With the help of the Somali police and intelligence agencies, Hamida was found and her journey to Yemen stopped.
“Hamida was found around 8pm. She was to leave for Yemen at 2am on a Thursday. The security forces in Somalia brought her back to Mandera,” the woman said.
In another incident, Ms Halima Hassan reported her son missing on May 28. He had been away from home for two days.
Police officers tracked Zakaria Abdikarim’s phone to Busia in Western Kenya, where he was said to have crossed into Uganda on June 2.
Efforts to intercept Abdikarim did not succeed. His family is raising funds to secure his freedom from captors in Libya.
“There is a growing and worrying trend of human trafficking in Mandera. Some people are working as agents of gangs based in Libya. They use deceit to convince our young people to go to Libya,” Abdikarim’s relative, Abdimajid Hussein, said.
He added that a traffickers’ agent based in Kenya receives Sh250,000 for every person delivered to Libya.
“What is happening in the North Eastern Kenya should be a wake-up call to residents, religious leaders and the government. We must do all we can to sensitise young people against this trend that is driving many households to poverty,” he said.
Mandera County Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) chief Pius Gitari told the Saturday Nation that some cases have been reported to police though many families opt to raise the ransom money.
“We have launched investigations into human trafficking. Why many families take the decision not to report to us is baffling. Some people have been arrested and taken to court already,” Mr Gitari said by phone.
On March 14, Mr Bilal Shukri Ahmed, a teacher, was arrested and arraigned for trafficking a child to Libya in 2021.
In Rhamu, Saddam Issack requested to join his sister who works in Garissa County in May this year.
“Days after arriving in Garissa, Issack disappeared. We then received a call from Libya asking us to send Sh2.2 million to buy his freedom. The criminals sent us a video of Issack being tortured. The captors threatened to kill him if I did not send the money,” Issack’s father Mohamed Elyas, said.
Read: Northern Kenya's dark corridors: CS Murkomen vows to dismantle human trafficking and arms networks
By the time of writing this article, the family had raised Sh700,000 of the ransom.
“I have sold all my goats to secure my son’s freedom but the money is still not enough. Where do I get the balance?” the elderly man asked rhetorically.
At least three families in Rhamu, including a senior police officer, say they have had their children taken to Libya.
The victims are mostly lured through social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, X and Instagram with promises of jobs or education.
Acting on tip-off police officers in Ijara apprehended five youths and a suspected human trafficker on July 26.
“We rescued the young people who were in the process of being trafficked from Garissa to South Africa,” Ijara Sub-County Police Commander Joseph Kotut, told the Saturday Nation.
The suspect, a 48-year-old man, was with the young people from the vast Dadaab refugee camp.
“Four of those rescued were from Hagdera refugee camp, while the fifth one was a Grade Eight learner at Saretho Junior School,” Mr Kotut said.
A sixth young man opted out before the group left Garissa town for Masalani on learning that his mother was sick.
“Preliminary investigations show they were to be taken to Tanzania through Mombasa before proceeding to South Africa. Once in Tanzania, the young men would start calling back home asking for cash,” Mr Kotut said.
“It is possible that they would be abandoned in the wilderness if their families failed to send the money.”
Police officers said they found a South African driving licence on the suspect, with his passport indicating he has travelled widely in southern Africa.
Security agents in Wajir North intercepted 10 young men suspected to be victims of trafficking on July 1.
According to police, the vehicle was stopped by officers on patrol around 11pm.
At first, the 10 told the officers that they had been invited to a wedding but on further questioning, they said they were heading to Libya using the Moyale-Ethiopia road, a well-known route for irregular migration.
The driver had claimed to have been hired from Nairobi to take the youths to Moyale for a wedding.
Security personnel on patrol in Turkana.
A 2018 assessment on the human trafficking in the region by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicated that smuggling migrants had become lucrative.
At the same time, the US State Department of Trafficking in Persons Report 2024 indicated that Kenya does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
Back in Mandera, locals have an M-Pesa till number to raise funds for the release of Dinow Abdi Yussuf “Dinka”, an orphan said to have been trafficked to Libya.
“Dinka reached out to me through IOM two weeks ago, saying he was being held by a gang in Libya. He shared pictures and videos of his suffering. Dinka’s situation is critical,” the orphan’s uncle, Abdisalam Lakicha, told the Saturday Nation.
Human trafficking gang
Dinka was a member of Italia FC in Mandera town before moving to Nairobi, where he studied while working as a shop attendant.
“I knew he was in school in Nairobi and was shocked when his photos and videos began circulating. He told me he had paid someone to help him go abroad for a better job,” Mr Lakicha said.
According to the family, the gang holding Dinka has agreed to lower the ransom from Sh3 million to Sh2 million.
Families told to pay ransom say they are instructed to channel the money a person only identified as Sumeya in Mogadishu.
“There are several money transfer outlets in town that only deal in dollars. What I sent was received by Sumeya in Mogadishu,” Mr Lakicha said.
He says he has already sent about Sh500,000 to buy Dinka’s freedom.
Like many other young men in Kenya’s northeast, desperation drove Dinka north. Chasing the mirage of work, he slipped across borders and deserts only to be seized in Libya by Magafe, a notorious human trafficking gang.
“Some of these youths are convinced by their close relatives to go to these countries. Some are convinced while on playgrounds while others are recruited at places of worship,” Garissa County Commissioner Mohamed Mwabudzo said.
Wajir County Commissioner Karuku Ngumo paints a different picture of the trafficking syndicate.
The administrator says parents in some instances play a role in the scheme.
“We are investigating situations in which families are aware their close relatives travel outside the country, hoping to end up in Europe. Since they have no money to facilitate the journey, they raise it in a deceitful manner,” the government official said.
Mr Ngumo added that a household can organise a son’s or daughter’s trip to Europe and later ask for funds from well-wishers after faking an abduction.
“Some men and women come here requesting to be helped to raise Sh2 million to Sh3 million that is to be sent to facilitate a trip of their son or daughter to Europe or the Middle East. It is never about paying for the freedom of an abducted relative,” the County Commissioner said, though he added that few cases are genuine.
According to Mr Ngumo, investigations are ongoing to identify and arrest deceitful residents.
“The claim by the administrator could be true. We rarely hear of anybody who has returned to his or her family from Libya or Yemen after sending the money,” Mr Hassan Abdi, a resident of Garissa, said.
Mr Ismail Mohamed is among the victims of human trafficking said to have been rescued from Libya. His family raised Sh1.5 million in 2023. They say Ahmed then proceeded to France and is learning French before securing employment.
Last year, residents of Modogashe raised Sh5 million to rescue Ali Abdi Yussuf, Hassan Moge Ahmed, Shukri Siad Abdullahi and Idris Dubow Sheiknoor, but they never returned home.
