"My joy ended the day he vanished": Families trapped in nightmare of missing children

Inside a dimly lit single room in Nairobi’s Huruma slum, silence hangs heavily as the laughter that once filled Glady Mwanza's rented house disappeared together with night-year-old Moses Onyango.

Nowadays, she lives with memories, prayers, unanswered questions, and hope that her grandson may, someday, just someday, emerge alive. 

“Since that child disappeared, I have no peace,” Mwanza told The Standard, fighting tears. “Even eating is difficult. I start crying whenever I put food on the table because he was the child I had become used to living with.”

Onyango vanished on December 18, last year, after leaving his grandmother’s house to return from visiting his uncle, where he had stayed for three days. The family only realised he was missing a day later.

Mwanza recalls the boy as cheerful, obedient and deeply attached to her.

“He would call me ‘Shosho, Shosho’ (a Kenyan slang for grandmother) whenever I came home,” she said. “He was our happiness. Since he disappeared, my joy ended.”

The elderly woman says Moses frequently visited his uncle and always returned safely. That Tuesday afternoon, he left as usual.

“He told me, ‘Grandmother, I’m going to my uncle’s place,’ and I gave him an okay because he often went there and came back,” she recalled.

The boy spent three days at his uncle’s house before saying he was returning home. But he never arrived.

Both Mwanza and the uncle assumed the PP2 pupil was the other, only for a terrifying truth to emerge after the child’s grandfather casually asked the uncle how the boy was doing.

“The uncle was shocked and said, ‘The child you are asking about left here and never returned home,’” Mwanza recounted. “That is when we realised, he was gone.”

Since then, the grandmother said she has searched endlessly across Nairobi and beyond.

“I went to Kiambu, Kasarani, Korogocho, Kabete — everywhere,” she shared. “I walked into police stations, children’s homes, anywhere I thought he could be.”

But months later, there is still no trace of the young boy.

“I have not lost hope because God is alive,” she said, clutching her hands tightly. “I only ask Kenyans to help me find my grandchild.”

A fear meters away in Mathare Area 4, another mother lives with the same torment. Rehema Aoko’s voice cracks every time she speaks about her missing son, Teddy Odhiambo.

The eight-year-old disappeared on October 13, 2024, while playing in a nearby field. 

Unlike other children, Odhiambo had special needs. He could not speak properly but understood instructions. He was energetic and loved running around, according to his mother.

“He was not like other children. He could not communicate well, but when you spoke to him, he understood," shared the mother. 

On the fateful day, the young woman said she looked away briefly while watching him play outside their house before he suddenly lost sight of him. 

“In just a few minutes, he disappeared,” she said, visibly disturbed and taken aback. “When I turned back, my child was gone.”

The desperate, Aoko said, search that followed led the family to Mogura Children’s Home after rumours emerged that a child matching Odhiambo's description had been seen there.

Armed with his photograph, the family visited the institution hoping for a miracle.

“A teacher told us he had been there. But they later said he jumped over the fence and disappeared again,” said the mother of three. 

That was the last lead the family ever received.

Nearly two years later, the firstborn son remains missing.

“Life has become extremely hard,” Aoko muttered, breaking into tears. “Sometimes I remember him and I cannot eat. I do not know where my child sleeps or whether he is even alive.”

“As a mother who carried him for nine months, the pain is unbearable,” she added.

The two women form part of thousands of Kenyan parents and guardians trapped in the agony of missing children’s cases that continue to rise across the country.

Recent government data paints a grim picture of a growing national crisis. According to authorities, Kenya recorded 10,581 child protection cases between January 2025 and March 2026. 

The cases include 1,636 missing children reports, 1,952 abductions, 173 trafficking incidents and 6,820 child abandonment cases.

On a single day, the Ministry of Gender and Children Services says the country is now recording an average of 23 cases involving missing, abducted or abandoned children. 

This week, as Kenya joined the world in marking International Missing Children’s Day, Gender Cabinet Secretary Hanna Wendot Cheptumo warned that the trend had become a national child safety crisis.

“There is no waiting period to report a missing child. Cases should be reported immediately to the nearest police station, Children's Services Office or Child Helpline 116.”

The ministry also revealed that more than 44,000 children whose parents remain unidentified are currently living in government institutions and charitable children’s homes across the country.

For families like Gladys’ and Rehema’s, however, statistics mean little compared to the emotional devastation they carry daily.

Gladys says every child she sees on the streets reminds her of Moses.

“Sometimes I walk aimlessly just looking at children’s faces, hoping I might see him,” she says. “I miss him so much.”

Rehema, too, says life stopped the day Teddy vanished.

“I only want one thing,” she says. “I want someone, somewhere, to help me find my child.”

And as cases of missing children continue to alarm the country, hundreds of Kenyan families remain suspended between hope and heartbreak — waiting for footsteps that may never return.