No voice, no homecoming, no embrace at airport: Kabiru's family only received his belongings
National
By
Juliet Omelo
| Apr 30, 2026
Jacinta Wanjiku, mother of slain police officer Benedict Kabiru and his uncle Daniel Kabiru address the Press at Jogoo House in Nairobi on April 29, 2026. [Boniface Okendo, Standard]
As the final batch of Kenyan police officers landed back on Tuesday, officially bringing to a close the 18-month Haiti mission, the moment was marked with relief and national pride.
For families of many officers, it was a long-awaited homecoming. For a few, it was a painful reminder of those who never returned. For the family of Benedict Kabiru, there was no homecoming. No embrace at the airport. No voice at the door.
Instead, his family was weighed down by the loss that has never been fully explained, and the grief that had been left to grow, unanswered. His mother, Jacinta Wanjiku, recounted the day she learned of her son’s death and how that changed everything.
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The announcement came publicly in September 2025, when President William Ruto first confirmed the death of the three officers in the Haiti mission. During the President’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Kabiru was named among three, six months after he was announced missing.
Days later, officials visited Kabiru’s family in Kiambu to officially inform them of his passing, but the call brought with them no clarity, no details, only the finality of words that never felt complete. “They did not tell us how he died, where his body was, or if we would ever find him,” she said yesterday.
What has made the situation more compounding is the information the family received afterwards. According to his mother, officers who were with him during the incident claim he was taken alive by Haitian gangs.
The information raised questions that remain unresolved to date. “If he was taken alive, what happened next? Do they have evidence that he was killed, or are they just assuming?” Wanjiku questioned.
The family said they have never received any clear explanation from authorities to address these concerns. Since then, she has been unwell, carrying not just grief, but the torment of not knowing. Not knowing where her son’s body lies. Not knowing what he went through in his final moments.
More than a year later, that pain has not softened, but only deepened. In March 2026, the family was called and handed his belongings. Clothes. Personal effects. Pieces of a life that once was. “When I received his belongings at Embakasi, it forced us to come to terms that my son had indeed died in a foreign country, all alone,’’ she said.
Without a body, there has been no burial. No grave to visit. No final goodbye. Only a painful substitute, a mock burial, carried out not because they were ready, but because they had no other choice. “What pains even more is the fact that we haven’t been given a chance to give my son a proper send-off because there is no body, and no information. Everything has just gone silent. Now we have decided to just do a mock burial so that we get closure because it has now been one year and two months,’’ she said with tears soaking her face.
According to Wanjiku, they have reached out to a senior officer at the National Police Service to help in organising and carrying out the mock burial, noting that the other two officers who died had been given a befitting send-off by the State.
“The other two fallen officers were given proper burial by the State, but what happens now with our case. We just need that acknowledgement that he died in the line of duty and even though it will be a mock burial, we would want their help,’’ she said.
As Kenya reflects on its mission in Haiti, the return of officers has brought closure to many. But for Kabiru, the mission has not ended. It lingers in unanswered questions, empty spaces at the dinner table, a child growing up without a father and a mother waiting for a body that may never come.
And in the quiet, aching truth that while the country has moved on, they have been left behind, with nothing but memories, and a silence that refuses to speak.