Heartless: Pain of Kabiru's family learning of his death in Ruto speech

If there is one family that has endured unbearable anguish in recent months, it is that of Benedict Kabiru, the young Kenyan police officer dispatched to Haiti under the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission.

Kabiru was among 1,000 officers chosen for the high-risk deployment, sent thousands of kilometres from home with hopes of building a better life for his young family. But his story has become one of heartbreak and unanswered questions.

Since the government announced his mysterious disappearance in March, reportedly during an ambush, days have folded into weeks and weeks into months. For his family, each attempt to seek answers has been met with silence from “stubborn government doors that never open”. All they wanted was the truth: was their son dead or alive?

Instead, a political theatre of confusion has unfolded—a ping-pong of statements that has exposed a government seemingly detached from human suffering, treating its own citizens with chilling indifference.

That detachment was underscored by President William Ruto’s bungled communication, which breached established protocols for death notifications within the security services.

The shocking news of Kabiru’s death was dropped into the public domain in a manner devoid of compassion or dignity—on the grand stage of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

“I must use this opportunity to honour the Kenyan officers Samuel Tompei, Benedict Kabiru, and Kennedy Nzumbi who lost their lives in the line of duty,” Ruto declared.

The revelation was a thunderbolt that shook Kabiru’s small Thamanda village in Kiambu, plunging it into despair and anger.

But even more worrying, and what has further exposed a disjointed government, is that the country’s Attorney General office, the principal legal adviser to the government,  told the court yesterday that she was not aware that the officer had died in Haiti, contradicting the Head of State’s remarks at UNGA.

The AG insisted she had not received such information from the police administration and requested more time to get clarification.

Kabiru’s family had filed a court petition in June that listed the Attorney General, the Inspector General of Police, and some Cabinet Secretaries as respondents.

In early September, a few days ago, MSS announced that only two officers, Samuel Tompei and Kennedy Nzuve, had died but Kabiru was still missing.

It’s been 180 days since Kabiru’s disappearance became public knowledge, his mother, Jacinta Wanjiku, clung desperately to hope and during that tough season, she stopped eating, sleep eluded her, and trauma overshadowed her.

Every day, she desperately crossed her fingers, made silent prayers, and fought the dreadful thought of death and despair.

“Why do I have to learn of my son’s death through social media and from a speech abroad? Since May, we have knocked on doors seeking answers in vain. What exactly are they not telling us?” a devastated Wanjiku posed to journalists.

Kabiru’s wife Miriam Watima and his 18-year-old daughter were even more traumatised by losing their breadwinner. The confusion that has engulfed their household has reportedly forced the daughter to freeze her plans to join university.

In fact, it was journalists who had rushed to cover the story in their rural village, thinking the family had already been briefed, who first presented the President’s video to them.

“It’s the saddest thing I have witnessed in a long time. We thought they had watched the video already, but when we showed them, they were completely broken,” a journalist told The Standard.

“Immediately they took time away, and we had to wait for close to two hours for them to calm down before we could speak to them,” he added.

But how could the state allow a grieving family to learn of their son’s death in a televised declaration abroad and not in a guarded moment of compassion?

What duty of care does a government owe its own soldiers and their families? And was this announcement a deliberate attempt to buy time, manage facts, and choreograph public perception?

“It is really traumatising and troubling when such an announcement is made in public as opposed to private. It comes with so much mental turmoil,” explains Tracy Korugyendo, a Nairobi-based trauma expert.

For months, the family approached journalists after days of visiting Vigilance House, the police headquarters in Nairobi, desperately seeking answers but with no help.

Was the President misled to make the Kabiru death declaration or can his word be relied upon by the family?
In Kenya, the law treats death, especially in cases of disappearance, with deliberate caution.

A person cannot simply be declared dead because they are missing; there is a structured process rooted in both statute and precedent.

The law provides that if someone has vanished without a trace and has not been seen or heard from for seven years, and no evidence of life emerges during that period, they may legally be presumed dead by the High Court of Kenya.

The family, or any other interested party, must petition the court, presenting evidence of the disappearance, reports from the police, and testimonies from those who last had contact with the missing person. Only after weighing this evidence can a judge issue a formal declaration of death.

“There is a police protocol for notifying next of kin when an officer, or even a civilian in certain cases, has died. Death is never communicated casually, and certainly not through the media,” explains George Musamali, a security expert.

“Usually it follows a command structure, for instance, in this case, the first place this should have reached is the Inspector General’s office. Once verified, it is communicated to the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) responsible for the officer’s duty or home area,” adds Musamali.

Kenya took up the mantle to lead the Haiti mission, a UN-backed operation tasked with restoring order in a country ravaged by gang violence and political collapse pledging 1000 police officers in October 2024.

Since the deployment started, reports that the mission has been dogged by funding uncertainty and logistical shortfalls, with much of the support promised by international partners either delayed or simply absent have been rife.

The US and Panama last month put forward a draft resolution to transition the existing 15-month-old MSS mission into a new, larger Gang Suppression Force supported by a new UN field office.

Additional reporting by David Odongo