Are they dead or alive? The pain of Kwale’s ‘half-widows’
From left: Mwanapili Juma Bomazi, Saumu Musa, and Mariam Omar whose husbands were abducted between 2014 and 2019 and have never been seen again.
"I have not seen my husband for eight years. I do not know whether he is alive or dead,” says 39-year-old Mariam Omar, a resident of Kwale County.
This is a common phrase among many “half-widowed” women in the county, the only difference is the period their husbands have been missing. The majority are stuck in an endless cycle of poverty, trauma and uncertainty not knowing when or if their husbands will return.
Eight years ago, an incident involving three people suspected to be police officers changed Mariam’s life. Her husband, Salim Hamisi Likongo, 47, disappeared after being kidnapped at gunpoint at his hardware shop in Ukunda, never to be seen again. By the time of her husband’s abduction, her firstborn was 18 years and the second was 15.
Sitting under a tree at her home in Bongwe village, it is evident that the tragedy of that day remains etched in the memory of the mother of two.
Bongwe, on the outskirts of Ukunda and off the Likoni-Lungalunga highway, is an isolated village dotted with coral-block houses with rusty iron sheets. According to reports, it is historically known to have hosted some suspected Al-Shabaab recruiters in Kwale, such as Ramadhan Kufungwa.
During the interview, Mariam struggles to put on a brave face, but the worry cuts through. A section of her semi-permanent house is almost collapsing. There are no nearby neighbours, which is a sign of how lonely and isolated her life is, and perhaps the stigma that women like her face.
“If he was here, this house would not be in this state,” says Mariam.
She recently tried her hand at chicken rearing after getting support from an organisation working with widows but, unfortunately, they were stolen.
“I sit here every day waiting. I am certain that I would not be living this life if he was around. But no one from the authorities is saying anything,” Mariam says.
At Majengo Mapya in Likoni, a dozen kilometres from Mariam’s home, are two other women who were “widowed” young and are now struggling to raise their children.
Sauda Omar, 28 and Misa Idi, 30, are childhood friends. At a young age, they fantasised about getting married, having children and living with their spouses, but fate had a different plan. They now spend most of their free days consoling each other.
Ms Omar sells Swahili snacks by the roadside, while Ms Idi earns a living from menial jobs, such as doing people’s laundry.
We find them at Ms Omar’s home in the mid-morning. The Swahili house is dark and quiet; all her nine children have gone to school. She lives in the same house that her husband, a butcher, “was taken from” almost two years ago. The memories of the fateful night still linger.
“We heard someone attempting to break the door at around 1am. Before he could open it, more than five armed and masked men stormed into the house. The children were screaming, others hid under the bed. We did not know what was going on,” says Ms Omar.
She adds that the men ransacked the house, taking all phones, files and photos of her and her ID card, and her husband.
“I tried following up with the nearest police station but they said my husband was not in the cell and had not been taken there,” she says.
Part of her daily routine now involves answering her children’s questions on the whereabouts of their father.
“The children are always asking where their father went. I cannot explain it to them. The elder ones saw everything and I cannot lie to them,” she says. One time, she says, she was called to school and informed that one of her children’s performance had dropped. “I had to explain to the teachers. Now they understand my situation and know the circumstances that my children and I are living in.”
An eerie silence suddenly feels the room before tears start rolling down Ms Omar’s eyes.
Her life now revolves around moving between her home in Likoni and the Muslim for Human Rights (Muhuri) offices in Mombasa town to follow up on a court case they filed following her husband’s disappearance.
When Ms Idi learnt that journalists will be visiting Ms Omar, she joined her, hoping that their plight will reach the government and their husbands will be returned safely.
“I have been left with the burden of raising the children. I wish I could know whether he is alive so that I keep waiting for his return,” said Ms Idi, whose husband is Juma Hamisi.
Back in Bongwe, Saumu Musa and Mwanapili Juma's husbands did not disappear, they were victims of extra-judicial killing.
Ms Musa, a mother of six, was married at the age of 19. Her husband Abdalla Nassir, an imam, was abducted from their home in 2019. His body was later found among four others at the Makindu sub-county hospital after being collected from Tsavo West National Park.
“I have just accepted. I know there will never be justice to prove whether my husband was guilty or innocent and of what crime. I will also die one day and join him,” she says.
“It is the children that keep reminding me of him. A few years have passed but looking at them makes me remember their father,” she says.
Ms Juma’s husband, Hassan Debe, was killed in 2015. She was left with nine children and now depends on seminars on women empowerment from which she goes home with between Sh500 and Sh2,000.
Due to culture, most of the women in the local communities are housewives and solely depend on their husbands. A majority also have six or more children, an overwhelming responsibility in the absence of their husbands. The women also face challenges such as disinheritance.
The widows have asked the Kwale County government to establish a special kitty for them from which they can get affordable loans.
As much as such cases are high in Kwale, other coastal counties – Kilifi, Lamu, Tana River and Mombasa – have also recorded abductions.
Human rights organisations such Haki Africa and Muhuri have been advocating the rights of victims of enforced disappearance.
According to Muhuri Rapid Response Officer Francis Auma, as much as some of those who disappear are terror suspects, they should at least be charged in the courts for them to determine whether they are guilty or innocent.
