By Abdimalik Hajir - Reporter
Kenya, 5 August 2026 - Hodhan Ibrahim Omar is a devastated mother. Her Grade 10 learner Abdighafar Aden Hassan, who ended up in Egypt after being trafficked from Garissa, is unable to return home.
She paid KSh 2.3 million ransom to seemingly deep-rooted cartels who lure desperate youths with promise for better life in Europe through a desperate journey from Libya and parts of Egypt.
“I was a struggling single mother trying to raise my children when my son went missing and eventually was being held for ransom. I was so overwhelmed because I didn’t know where I would get such kind of money,” Hodhan told Dawan Africa in an interview.
She started running up and down and sometimes, she used social media to ask for well-wishers to help her rescue her first born son.
With the help of relatives and social media sympathizers, she managed to raise KSh 2,250,000
Unlike other families whose children are still in the hands of traffickers, locally known as Magafe, her son she says, disembarked from Libya bound train and ended up in Egypt where he is stranded because she doesn’t have means to have him return him home safe. This is besides having a go home letter from the authorities.
She says she believes her son was being held in Sudan and when she paid the ransom is when they embarked on a journey to Libya, but ended up in Egypt where he found a Somali family that has been hosting him.
He disappeared in December 2025 from Nairobi where he had gone to his aunt over the holidays.
The cartels have a long chain including those recruiting cells, agents to transport to their destination and those who are tasked to contact parents to ask for huge ransom.
They are also spread in different countries as per families sending ransom money to different destinations.
For Instance, Hodhan paid some of the money in different installments and all of them in different countries, the first installment she paid 1,000 dollars to Dubai and another 3,500 dollars to Istanbul in Turkey.
Some of the money she said she paid through Somalia. The monies were paid through a forex bureau locally known as Hawala.
Although she is lucky to have managed to raise the funds, other families are not lucky since they are still struggling to rescue their children from the traffickers who send them video clips of them being tortured.
Iftin primary lost three girls whose parents received three identical video clips in distressing situation
In a video sent to her family in Garissa, a 16-year-old girl lies on the ground, her hands tied behind her back and bound to her legs with heavy chains and padlocks. The unseen captor whips her repeatedly.
The teenager, referred to here as *Deka because she is still an active hostage, vanished after leaving her primary school. Soon after, her captors began contacting her family, demanding an $18,000 ransom, about KSh 2.3 million.
The teenagers were lured by a well-organized syndicate that targets local school children with promises of a better life in Europe, only to smuggle them to Libya and hold them captive in harsh conditions.
According to one of the sisters of the girls, the police failed them because they said if the authorities would have acted immediately, they would have reported the matter, they would have been intercepted at the border.
The syndicate has been taking both a financial and emotional toll to communities in Garissa as almost all families have been contributing to free their relatives from the cartels (Magafe).
“My mother is diabetic, we have been struggling with her medication, where are we going to get the KSh 2.5 million they are asking for?” she said amidst sobbing.
*Halima Abdi, not her real name, has been receiving distressing videos of her younger brother who disappeared from her grandmother’s house in Garissa town.
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The Grade 10 student at County High School is suspected to have fallen victim to the recruiting agents targeting children before they trafficked to Libya.
“Per day, they will send me two to three videos of him in very bad shape. In the video clips they torture him badly. Many a times they video call me showing him tied to a tree and whipping him while naked,” she explained.
“With the help of families and friends and extended families, we managed to raise and send about KSh 1 million. We are struggling to raise another KSh 1 million which is near impossible,” she added.
Flanked with her mother and grandmother, the 23-year-old sister noted that they sold their last camel recently, appealing for government intervention to rescue her brother.
Most families whose children are being held captive by the traffickers are so apprehensive that many are reluctant even to speak to the media, fearing that doing so could put their loved ones at even greater risk.
When sending money to these traffickers, the families noted that they are often warned by the cartels to say the money is being sent for ‘family support’ instead of the Magafe as widely known.
Sheikh Hassan Abdi of Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM), said the situation is worrying as oftentimes families come to them asking them for a fundraiser from the mosques.
Describing the traffickers as “child terrorist” Sheikh Hassan also blamed parents for giving un-monitored and free access to mobile phones that he noted the traffickers take advantage of lured minors.
He explained that there is a need for stakeholders including parents, relevant government departments and religious leaders to come together and find a solution adding that joblessness and desperation of youths has immensely aided the traffickers.
“I call them child terrorists because the way they trade those at their hands is appalling, degrading and inhuman. These children are the future of this country. We need action to stop such syndicates from thriving,” sheikh Hassan said in an interview.
The cleric wondered why the police are not intercepting youths exiting the Kenya borders, noting that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have machinery cracking the syndicate.
Sheikh Hassan said the traffickers used enticing things such as showing how people in Europe are doing well. He noted that despite these children being raised by parents and not lacking anything, they still end up in Libya.
Garissa Police were tight lipped to speak about the rising cases of child trafficking.
However, Garissa Chief Principal Yussuf Sheikh Ali noted that the local government authority is so concerned and there are measures that have been put in place.
He said they have ordered police at various barriers on the Garissa-Nairobi highway not to allow minors through without the company of parents or guardians.
“We have also asked our chiefs to start public Baraza and sensitize communities across the county about these traffickers,” he said.
He also blamed parents for not reporting immediately when their children went missing noting that they have also abdicated their responsibilities.
“Why would you not monitor your child and whom they interact with? Who are his/her friends in school? Why would you give a grade 10 child a mobile phone?” he asked.