Two Kenyan activists were abducted by Ugandan security forces after attending a rally for opposition leader Bobi Wine, a rights group said Thursday.
Abductions of government critics and opposition figures have become common across east Africa, and rights groups allege that authorities are failing to protect their own citizens and even working together against activists.
In May, Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire say they were abducted and tortured for days by security forces in Tanzania.
There was little reaction from their respective governments, with the Kenyan government saying only that they had “engaged diplomatically” but never openly criticising the incident.
The latest victims were Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo, who were reportedly taken at a petrol station after attending a rally for Wine on Wednesday.
The head of Kenyan rights group VOCAL Africa, Hussein Khalid, told AFP they had been unable to reach the men, saying his group believed they were “taken by security officers”.
“Their phones are off… I think they knew they were Kenyans,” he said.
“The East Africa cross-border abductions are getting out of hand now. We have seen the same in Kenya, we have seen the same in Uganda, in Tanzania,” Khalid said.
“It’s worrying that the three states may be working together to suppress the freedoms in the region.”
Njagi has previously said he was also abducted by Kenyan security forces last year over his involvement in anti-government protests.
Ugandan opposition leader Wine said the Kenyans were taken by “armed operatives” in a sign of the “continuing lawlessness by the rogue regime” of President Yoweri Museveni, who is seeking to extend his 40-year rule in elections in January.
“The criminal regime apparently abducted them simply for associating with me and expressing solidarity with our cause,” he said in a post on X.
Another Ugandan opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, was kidnapped in Kenya last year and smuggled back to Uganda to face trial for treason.
AFP contacted the Ugandan police as well as Kenya’s interior and foreign ministries for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
