After two months in militant hands, five Kenyan chiefs who were abducted by suspected Al-Shabaab fighters in February have finally been released. The chiefs, who were kidnapped while en route to a security meeting ahead of President William Ruto’s visit to Mandera, were freed on Sunday evening and dropped off by unidentified men near the Kenya-Somalia border.
The daring abduction occurred along the road from Wargadud to Elwak Town, between Bamba Owla and Ires Suki in Mandera South. The chiefs, drawn from Wargadud East, Qurahmudow, and Chachabole, were traveling in a government vehicle when they were intercepted and taken across the border into Somalia.
For two months, their fate remained uncertain—until local elders stepped in, negotiating directly with the militants in what officials are calling a “delicate but successful operation.”
“The government has been in active efforts through the local elders to rescue the administrative officers,” a regional security source confirmed, adding that the abduction had escalated into a national security concern.
President William Ruto, speaking at Moi Stadium in Mandera County on February 4, responded firmly to the incident: “We will deal with the terrorists, and that is why I have come with the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Gilbert Masengeli, to say that no matter what happens, that issue must be promptly addressed.”
Ruto linked the abduction to Kenya’s ongoing pressure on Al-Shabaab. “The insurgents chose to abduct the administrators because of the effort that Kenyan multiagency security teams had shown against them in the region,” he said.
With tensions still high along the Somali border and militant activity on the rise, Kenya remains on high alert even as the release of the chiefs brings a moment of relief and a victory for both diplomacy and community-led interventions.
