Traffic along the Thika Super Highway was brought to a standstill on Wednesday afternoon by protests conducted by citizens over the increasing number of children being abducted. The protests took place in the Witeithie area of Kiambu County.
Witnesses have it that the protests began with residents erecting barricades on a section of the highway in an outcry of failure by the authorities to address reported cases of kidnap incidences in the area. Apparently, at least three children have been kidnapped in the region in the past month with no tangible action being taken to address the rising insecurity.
The demonstration was triggered by yet another incident that was reported on Tuesday, January 13, involving a Grade Eight pupil alleged to have been abducted by unknown people travelling in a black vehicle. The abduction has left residents fearful that they cannot guarantee the safety of their children when they are left alone to walk to school or play outdoors.
Videos and pictures that were making the rounds on the internet showed the traffic at a grinding halt as the protesters erected barriers along the road using stones and burning tires. The traffic jam was along the busy highway that connects the capital to central Kenya.
Mid-afternoon saw no police presence at the scene, further agitating the residents’ sentiments as efforts to calm the situation and open the road were yet to begin.
Recently, the Thika Super Highway in Kenya has turned out to be one of the major flash points of the protest movement, as residents have turned to blocking the busy highway as their means of garnering the authorities’ attention over unresolved issues.
A similar case was seen in September 2024, where citizens of Juja staged a demonstration along the highway to show discontent over hyena attacks. The case came after a four-year-old boy was dragged by a hyena while accompanying his younger cousin to a shop. When the case occurred, citizens felt that the government had not acted on previous warnings.
Wednesday’s protests took place just a day after a significant disruption on the same highway. This is following a accident on Monday, January 12, near the GSU HQ at Allsops involving a lorry and a 14-seater public service vehicle that resulted in a huge traffic congestion.
Car owners were compelled to use the back roads of Kiambu Road and the Northern Bypass to join Thika Road at Ruiru in a bid to avoid traffic. At the time of publication, however, traffic flow at Witeithie has yet to go back to normal, as the residents continue to call for prompt measures by the authorities to control the frequency of kidnappings in the region.
