Dandora activist Caroline Mwatha Ochieng is said to have disappeared on 6th.February 2019. She was a founder member and caseworker with Dandora Community Social Justice Centre. The Centre has been documenting, lobbying and calling for police professionalism, public accountability and an end to extra judicial killings. On Thursday, her colleagues’ efforts to reach her on the phone proved futile. Her disappearance was reported to Buru Buru police station on Friday. “We are doing everything we can. We believe she is still alive because my son and her friends went to look at every mortuary, but she was not there,” Mbai said at his Dandora home. Her phone was switched off.
Buru Buru deputy police Chief Stephen Okal yesterday said they had yet to make any headway in their search. “So far we’ve not established where she is,” he said. The police officers have so far recorded statements from her neighbor and parents. The parents live a kilometer away from Caroline’s house. The police are today expected to get a report from Safaricom on her call logs.
Yesterday, Caroline’s father Stanislas Mbai said they had searched for her at Kenyatta National Hospital, Mama Lucy Hospital, Dandora hospitals and even city mortuaries. A friend also claimed to have called her at around 6pm on Wednesday but her calls went unanswered. The center sent one of her co-workers to her place. She found her 13-year-old daughter alone in the house. There were anxious moments yesterday when members of the lobby were informed of a body found in Nairobi River. They all rushed to see the body, but it turned out it was a man’s.
Amnesty has called on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and National Police Service to thoroughly investigate Carol’s disappearance and establish her whereabouts. Amnesty International yesterday urged the police to conduct speedy and thorough investigations on Caroline’s disappearance.
Caroline was heavily involved in the documentation of extrajudicial killings in Dandora. Centre coordinator Wilfred Olal yesterday said that activists and the police do not have a good relationship.“When you are dealing with police killings, you target specific police officers and they have not been very kind to us,” he said on the phone.