In the early hours of June 25th, 2024, 27-year-old Peter Macharia left his home in Kibera to join a youth-led demonstration in Nairobi. It was the height of the protests against the Finance Bill—a moment of reckoning for the country’s youth.

It was also the last time his mother, Alice Wambui, ever saw him.

“He left to protest. He believed in the cause,” Alice recalls, her voice barely above a whisper. “But he never came back.”

For the past 12 months, Alice has searched tirelessly—through morgues, hospitals, police stations.

At Kenyatta National Hospital, she found documents showing that Peter had been treated for a gunshot wound and discharged. But there was no sign of him in the wards. No contact. No body. No explanation.

“They said he was discharged. But I know my son. He would have called me. He didn’t walk out,” she says, clutching a worn photo of him.

The uncertainty has unraveled her life. Once a caretaker at an apartment block along Ngong Road, Alice lost her job after using rent money to fund her city-wide search for Peter. Eventually, she was evicted.

Now, she lives in a small tin shack with her remaining children—her body frail, her spirit fractured.

“I died when Peter disappeared,” she says through tears. “I know he’s gone. I felt it. But I need to find him. I need to bury my son.”

Peter is one of many young people who vanished during the chaotic crackdown on the 2024 protests. While the government maintains that all those arrested were released, families like Alice’s say otherwise.

“How can the president say that?” she asks. “Do our children not count? Do we not matter?”

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has flagged 71 abduction cases over a four-month period last year, many involving unmarked vehicles and masked operatives allegedly targeting young protestors. Despite the growing number of missing persons reports, no thorough investigation has yielded answers. No one has been held accountable.

As Gen Z prepares a vigil at Uhuru Park to mark the anniversary of the protests, the silence surrounding the missing remains deafening.

“These were our children,” a KNCHR representative noted. “Now they are the ghosts of a promise this country has yet to keep.”

For Alice Wambui, the plea is simple—and shattering.

“If he’s dead, just tell me. Let me find him. Let me bury my son. Then maybe I’ll sleep.”