"My son is alive!" Mother to missing security expert says

Piece by: Gideon Osen
Lifestyle

Security expert Mwenda Mbijwe has been missing for almost two months but his mother says her "sources and my God" tell her he's alive and safe.

His mother, Jane Gatwiri, told the Star on Monday in a follow-up interview she was “sure my son is alive” but did not explain.

Gatwiri said she no longer relies on police to find Mbijiwe, complaining investigators have taken the family on a wild goose chase. He disappeared on June 12.

She spoke after it emerged that a badly decomposed body was discovered in a river in Kirinyaga on Sunday evening. Police are contacting families with missing loved ones, asking them to view the body.

The body was mostly bones and a little flesh. 

It was not clear whether Gatwiri had been contacted.

When asked whether she had been contacted, Gatwiri dismissed the likelihood the body could be Mbijiwe’s, saying she had reliable information her son "is away for security reasons".

She said the police have called the family to identify numerous bodies at different locations in the region — none was Mbijiwe's.

Whenever they reach the sites indicated by the police, she said, the investigators only showed them papers and dismissed them, saying the investigation is still on.

"The police have made me walk from one place to another, sometimes calling us to go identify a body. And when we reach there, they decline to give any information, only showing us papers and saying they are still investigating."

"From Chuka to every other place, we have searched and nothing has come of it. I no longer pay attention to those things from police," she added. 

On the day he went missing, Mbijiwe had hired a Toyota Fielder car to travel to his Meru backyard to see his two mothers— Gatwiri, his biological mother living in Timau, and another in Kibirichi.

He did not reach his destinations. His car was found vandalised and abandoned in a coffee farm in Kiambu. His whereabouts are unknown.

When Gatwiri spoke to the Star early this month, she said the two families have visited every morgue and hospital but they haven't found their son.

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