For a timeline of transnational abductions and forced repatriations in East Africa, visit transnational.africauncensored.online.
On a bright Nairobi afternoon in January, Maria Sarungi Tsehai was checking her emails in the back seat of a yellow taxi when the car screeched to a halt. Her phone slipped from her hands. As she bent to retrieve it, she froze—through the window, masked men were closing in from every direction.
Before she could speak, the doors flew open. “Who are you? What do you want?” she screamed, but she also knew she was being abducted.
For the past four years, Sarungi, a prominent Tanzanian journalist and human rights activist, has lived in Kenya after fleeing her country amid threats of arrest and the shutdown of her media outlet. Yet even in exile, she was not safe.
Across the region, political repression is spilling beyond national lines. As Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya move toward elections in 2025, 2026, and 2027, civil society groups warn of a coordinated campaign of transnational intimidation—where critics vanish in one country and reappear detained or tortured in another.
Sarungi’s kidnappers yanked her out onto the streets of the Kenyan capital. The men—who claimed to be policemen—blindfolded her, choked her, and handcuffed her hands and feet. “They sat on my legs to keep me from moving,” she recalls. They seized her two phones and demanded the passcodes. She refused. Hours later, they dumped her on the outskirts of Nairobi—her phones were gone.
“They claimed to be policemen. Hours later, I was dumped in an unknown location. What convinced me this was cross-border kidnapping is that two of the men were Kenyans, but I strongly felt the driver was Tanzanian.”
Roland Ebole, a lawyer and Amnesty activist, described the abduction of Sarungi as a “clear indication of the East African states’ coordination to crackdown on political opposition across-borders.”
“They can do it anywhere”
Maria believes “there was high profile Tanzanian involvement” in her abduction and that the attackers intended to force her back to Tanzania because of her outspoken social media posts. “These groups collaborate with law enforcement in Kenya and Uganda to track and abduct people,” she says. “If they can do it in Nairobi, they can do it anywhere.”
She suspects the plan to return her to Tanzania was aborted after roadblocks were set up and a wave of public outcry erupted from colleagues and supporters across the region and beyond.
Despite the trauma, she refuses to be silenced. “The aim is to intimidate us and create fear,” she says. “But I have only become more conscious and more determined.”
Sarungi Tsehai uses her X account and her YouTube channel, Mwanzo TV Plus, to publish sharp commentary and stream live debates on Tanzanian politics. Her four-hour ordeal was but one example of horrifying cross-border attacks carried out by East African governments against their critics signaling a clear message “no where is safe.”
A pattern of regional abductions
Since late 2024, opposition figures, journalists, and activists have been targeted in a wave of cross-border abductions. In May 2025 Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi was attacked in his hotel in Tanzania, tortured, and dumped at the Namanga border crossing. On the same day, Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire was arrested and held in Tanzania, where she later alleged she was raped and tortured before being left at the Ugandan border.
In the same month Former Kenyan Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and politician Martha Karua were detained at a Tanzanian airport. They had traveled to observe the trial of opposition leader Tundu Lissu, but were stopped at immigration and forcibly deported back to Nairobi. Most recently, Kenyan activist Mwabili Mwagodi was kidnapped in Tanzania and dumped near the border.
According to Victor Nyamori of Amnesty International Kenya, these incidents reveal deliberate coordination. “Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are no longer restricting repression within their own borders. Security agencies are collaborating to silence and terrorize dissent across the region,” he told Africa Uncensored by phone.
“A rogue alliance against citizens”
For Martha Karua, the crackdown is not abstract — she experienced it firsthand in May 2025.
“At immigration, I was told I could not enter Tanzania. No legal reason was given. The officer said the order came from ‘above.’ Eventually, my passport was stamped Entry refused and I was deported back to Nairobi.”
Tanzanian authorities later held a press conference accusing visitors from neighboring countries of trying to “spoil” Tanzania — a thinly veiled reference to Karua and her colleagues who had traveled to observe Lissu’s trial. “How attending the trial of a colleague is going to ruin Tanzania?” she asks.
Karua believes her deportation was jointly orchestrated by Tanzania and Kenya. “Tanzania denied us entry, but Kenya collaborated. Tanzania cannot force Kenya Airways to alter our tickets — that had to come from the Kenyan government. Even Kenya’s Foreign Minister later suggested we had brought it on ourselves. That posture showed collusion.”
She sees her case as part of a wider trend. “These states are acting as rogue regimes. Legal extradition requires a court order, but what we see instead are abductions, deportations, and renditions carried out outside the law. Security agencies in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania are colluding to silence legitimate opposition.”
Karua is one of the lawyers defending Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was, in November 2024, kidnapped in Nairobi and deported to Kampala, where he now faces treason charges for his criticism of President Yoweri Museveni.
As Besigye’s lawyer she connects the dots across borders. “In Besigye’s case, he was abducted in Nairobi by men who included Ugandan security officers and taken straight across the border. No court process, no extradition procedure. This is straightforward illegal cross-border repression.”
She warns that East Africa’s democratic space is collapsing fast “In Uganda, Besigye faces treason charges designed to keep him from campaigning. In Tanzania, Lissu is barred from running and his party “Chadema” is under siege. In Kenya, Ruto is moving toward authoritarianism. Citizens in all three countries must resist this regression.”
A widening crackdown
Tundu Lissu is a former presidential candidate from the Chadema party. He placed second in the 2020 presidential race and survived a brutal assassination attempt in 2017, in which he was shot 16 times—no one has ever been held accountable. He was arrested and charged with treason after prosecutors accused him of making a speech that called on the public to rebel and disrupt the upcoming election.
His trial opened just weeks before Tanzania’s national vote later this month, at a moment when Chadema has been barred from contesting. Lissu and his lawyers say the charges are politically motivated.
Disappearances of opposition members are routine. John Heche, deputy chairman of Chadema party, lists several activists still missing since 2024. “Deusdedit Soka, Jacob Godwin Mlay, and Franck Mbise vanished in Dar es Salaam. Their whereabouts remain unknown despite court orders for investigations.”
Heche also recalls the 2023 abduction of Ally Kibao, who later died after being attacked with acid.
Rights groups argue these abductions reflect state complicity. “For violations to occur where an activist is abducted in one country and transferred to another, it shows government involvement. These may not be formal agreements, but clandestine collaboration is clear,”Roland Ebole, a lawyer and Amnesty activist, says in an interview.
Despite mounting evidence, regional bodies remain silent. Maria Sarungi asks: “What are the African Union and the East African Court of Justice doing about these abductions? East Africa has been repeatedly cited in human rights reports, but no one is holding states accountable.”
Karua adds that international solidarity is urgently needed. “When human rights are violated in one corner, it is a threat everywhere. The international community must call out Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania for these acts. Silence only emboldens repression.”
Africa Uncensored reached out to government officials in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania for comment on the allegations in this report but received no response by publication time.
This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
* Delilah Paulo is the author’s pseudonym as she is concerned about her safety.
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