Tanzanian Journalist Maria Sarungi Rules Out Kenyan Police Involvement In Her Abduction

Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi has ruled out the involvement of Kenyan police in her abduction on Sunday.

Narrating the ordeal to the press in Nairobi on Monday evening, she revealed that her abductors desperately avoided police checkpoints.

“At some random stops, they ordered me to hide, and I could hear someone talking to them from outside the car,” Sarungi revealed.

She said her abductors did not have any security escort but were instead independent.

“After attempting to access my phone for the third time without success, they threatened to take me to the police. Thinking it was the police all along, I questioned who they were then,” Sarungi recalled.

Sarungi further revealed that while in transit, her abductors kept making random stops and went outside the car to consult among themselves.

She said that at one point, she was left in the car with one of the three men who abducted her to prevent her from escaping while the other two went outside to converse.

“While inside the car, they were not talking, but from what I could see, they were signaling each other in a way I could not understand,” Sarungi said.

Seized phone

Sarungi revealed that her abductors primarily targeted her mobile phone, which they managed to take but fortunately without the password.

“Realizing they couldn’t execute their plans successfully, they resorted to taking my phone,” she recalled.

She also said her abductors were driving at high speed with the intent of getting her back to Tanzania.

“When I asked why they wanted to take me to Tanzania, one of them told me I was needed in Tanzania because I have done wrong,’” Sarungi narrated.

She revealed telling her abductors that she had done no wrong in Tanzania, but rather she was being sought after for being a vocal human rights activist.

Sunday’s incident had sparked concerns over an emerging pattern of abduction of foreigners, ostensibly by Kenyan security agencies, the latest being the dramatic seizure of Uganda’s opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, in Nairobi and his forced return to Uganda, where he was presented in a military court.

Kenyan security agencies have faced sustained criticism over the abduction of government critics with some reemrging after being held incommunicado for weeks.

Sarungi unequivocally stated that her ordeal has only given her more zeal to continue defending human rights without fear of intimidation.