Kenya Accused of Enabling Cross-Border Repression

Twaha Mwaipaya, a Tanzanian dissident and leading youth organiser for Chadema, was allegedly taken by people in three vehicles as he rode in a taxi in Kamulu, Machakos County, just east of Nairobi. Amnesty urged authorities to “urgently establish (Mwaipaya's) whereabouts and ensure his safety.” The account doesn't identify the people who took him; Mwaipaya is a critic of Tanzania's government.

Activist Boniface Mwangi said: “Kenya is not safe for Kenyans, it's not safe for East Africans -- it's not safe for anyone who is fighting political dictatorship or political oppression.” John Kitoka, Chadema's head of foreign affairs, told AFP: “They rounded him up and took him away.”

A critic marked as a problem

Mwaipaya went to jail in 2022 for criticising the government, then fled into exile in Kenya the following year. He regularly posts criticism of the government to almost 600,000 Instagram followers. The sequence in the account is stark: a government critic went to jail, went into exile, and now faces an alleged abduction in the country where he sought refuge.

Kitoka said Mwaipaya “might end up killing him because such abductions don't end up with the police. He is a critic of the government. He's a big problem for them.” Kitoka is also in exile in Kenya after last year's election violence. He said he felt “very unsafe” and that “there are people sent to Nairobi to do abductions.” Those are Kitoka's claims; the account doesn't establish who took Mwaipaya or who sent them.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan's government has faced opposition accusations of brutal repression, including the killing of thousands of protesters during elections a year ago. Tanzania's government has heavily cracked down on opposition figures, and critics have accused it of trying to abduct dissidents who sought refuge in neighbouring Kenya. Those accusations put an ordinary act of seeking refuge inside a wider contest over who can safely speak, organise, and cross borders.

A pattern across borders

Kenya has faced accusations of letting foreign governments kidnap their citizens and forcibly extradite them in violation of international law. In October 2024, four Turkish refugees were abducted in Nairobi and forcibly returned to Turkey. The following month, Uganda said it had worked with Kenyan authorities to seize Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye in Nairobi and take him to Kampala for a widely condemned trial.

In January 2025, Tanzanian rights activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai was kidnapped in Nairobi but released before she could be smuggled across the border, after rights groups and media raised an outcry. In February 2026, Tanzanian activist Mshabaha Mshabaha Hamza was captured and later released. The account gives no details of community-led organizing or mutual aid in Mwaipaya's case; activists and rights groups raised the alarm.

Amnesty International called these incidents part of a “growing and worrying trend of transnational repression.” It wants authorities to establish Mwaipaya's whereabouts and ensure his safety. That appeal puts the immediate burden on the same authorities facing allegations over cross-border abductions. For people in exile, the reported chain of cases leaves no easy line between refuge and exposure, while official power remains the force they're asked to trust.