Nairobi is once again at the centre of an uncomfortable question about who is really safe in exile. The case of a Tanzanian opposition activist missing since Sunday has rights groups warning that borders in East Africa no longer shield dissidents.
Seized on a Sunday afternoon
Twaha Mwaipaya, a leading youth organiser for Tanzania’s main opposition party, Chadema, was reportedly abducted in Kamulu, Machakos County, just east of Nairobi. Amnesty International says he was riding in a taxi to visit friends when people in three vehicles rounded him up. Nobody has publicly said where he is now.
Mwaipaya is hardly a quiet figure. He was jailed in 2022 for criticising the government and escaped into exile in Kenya last year. From there he kept posting to almost 600,000 Instagram followers, taking aim at President Samia Suluhu Hassan. The opposition accuses her government of brutal repression, including the killing of thousands of protesters around last year’s elections.
“Not safe for anyone”
Activist Boniface Mwangi did not soften his words. Kenya, he said, is not safe for Kenyans or for any East African fighting political oppression. Chadema’s foreign affairs head, John Kitoka, who has also lived in Kenyan exile since the election violence, fears the worst. He told AFP such abductions rarely end with the police, and he believes people have been sent to Nairobi for exactly this purpose. He admits he feels very unsafe himself.
A pattern, not an accident
Sadly, this has happened before. Four Turkish refugees were taken in Nairobi in October 2024 and flown back to Turkey. A month later, Uganda said it worked with Kenyan authorities to seize opposition leader Kizza Besigye in Nairobi. Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai was kidnapped in January 2025 but freed after an outcry. Another Tanzanian, Mshabaha Mshabaha Hamza, was captured and released in February 2026. Amnesty calls this a growing trend of transnational repression.
For many Kenyans, the pattern stings because Kenya has long seen itself as a haven for East Africans. Amnesty wants authorities to urgently establish Mwaipaya’s whereabouts and guarantee his safety. Until they do, every exile in Nairobi will be watching the roads a little more closely.
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