Kenya Police Implicated in Abduction of South Sudanese Govt Critic
The Kenyan police have been implicated in the abduction of a South Sudanese government critic who went missing while in Nairobi.
International media outlets reported on Thursday that Morris Mabior Awikjok Bak was abducted by highly trained operatives and taken back to Sudan after which he went missing.
The United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights told AFP that it believes that Mabior is still alive and is being held by South Sudan’s National Security Service.
The Commission, therefore, concluded that Nairobi assisted South Sudan in abducting the critic.
“We assume that he is still alive and under the custody of the National Security Service,” a representative from the commission told AFP.
“This conduct could only have been made with the cooperation of some agents in Kenya.”
A report about Mabior’s disappearance was first highlighted by Human Rights Watch in February 2023, a human rights group, which noted that the critic was seeking asylum in Kenya.
“A relative said that on February 4, 2023, armed men, reportedly wearing Kenyan police uniforms, abducted Morris Mabior Awikjok Bak from his home in Nairobi and beat up his wife,” noted the Human Rights Watch.
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“Two days later, a local newspaper in South Sudan, The Dawn, reported that Bak had been “extradited to Juba to face charges” for abusing government officials, citing sources in South Sudan’s National Security Service.”
Mabior fled to Kenya in April 2021 after claiming that he received threats from several leaders within the South Sudan Government.
Upon arrival in Nairobi, the critic sought help from the Department of Refugee Affairs in Kenya where he registered as a refugee.
“If Kenyan authorities were involved in Bak’s ‘disappearance’ and if they facilitated his forced return to South Sudan, Kenya would be violating its obligations toward refugees and undermining its regional image as a country that seeks to protect human rights,” added the Rights Watch.
The revelation comes a day after Kenya received a green light from the United Nations to spearhead a peace mission in Haiti. When Kenya volunteered to lead the mission, it received international backlash over its history of brutality.
Kenya Police Implicated in Abduction of South Sudanese Govt Critic
