East African dissidents seek fragile refuge in Kenya

Dozens of Ugandans and Tanzanians are believed to be hiding in Kenya after recent elections in their countries were followed by arrests, kidnappings and killings. Five refugees agreed to speak, and each said they knew between 20 and 40 other people who had fled to Kenya in recent months.

Tanzanian opposition official David Djumbe said he fled after a crackdown on dissidents in Tanzania. He was personal assistant to opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who was jailed before the October election. Rights groups and the opposition say thousands of people were killed during a crackdown on protests over alleged vote-rigging. Tanzania's government says 518 people died. President Samia Suluhu Hassan won the election with 98 percent of the vote.

Djumbe said he received a phone warning after the vote telling him he had three days before he would disappear. He said his home was then raided twice by men who identified themselves as police officers, and he crossed into Kenya secretly. He stayed in a safe house for six months before returning home in May, but said he was abducted from the street three days later and escaped after motorbike taxi drivers followed the car and caused a disturbance. He then fled again to Kenya.

A Ugandan rights activist who used the name Eriza said he left Uganda because he believed he was on an army hit list during elections in January, when President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term. The president's son and army chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has posted on social media about kidnapping and torturing opposition figures, and said security forces had killed 30 opposition supporters and arrested 2,000. Uganda's main opposition candidate, Bobi Wine, was forced into hiding and has fled to the United States.

Another Ugandan, a lawyer using the name Luka, said he fled to Kenya's coast after being warned that he could be arrested. He said conditions in Uganda were increasingly difficult for human rights work.

The refugees said Kenya felt only relatively safe. Kenyan security forces have been accused of dozens of abductions of government critics, especially since protests against President William Ruto in 2024; the security forces deny the accusations. Mwanase Ahmed of the Pan-African Solidarity Network said Kenya still had stronger civil society, media and courts than some neighbouring countries.

The source cited previous cases in Kenya, including Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was abducted in Nairobi in 2024 and returned to Uganda, where he faces treason charges that he says are false. It also cited Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi, who was abducted in Kenya two months later and released after rights groups raised an outcry. Eriza said he believes Ugandan operatives are present in Kenya and that he now meets people only in public places during the day so witnesses would be present if he were seized.