Saturday, February 11, 2012

Family’s month of agony over missing son



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PHOTO/JENNIFER MUIRURI  Mr Edward Mule Yesse’s family during an interview in their Nairobi home. They are (from left) Mrs Emma Yesse, his mother, Mrs Monah Garisse Mule, his wife, Mr Komora Yesse, his brother, and Natalie Moraa, his niece. Mr Mule was abducted by Al-Shabaab militants in Gerille Town on January 13.
PHOTO/JENNIFER MUIRURI Mr Edward Mule Yesse’s family during an interview in their Nairobi home. They are (from left) Mrs Emma Yesse, his mother, Mrs Monah Garisse Mule, his wife, Mr Komora Yesse, his brother, and Natalie Moraa, his niece. Mr Mule was abducted by Al-Shabaab militants in Gerille Town on January 13.  
By BERLY WAMBANI bwambani@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Friday, February 10  2012 at  22:30
The Yesse family has undergone untold torture for the last one month.
Their son, Edward Mule Yesse, a district officer, has been missing, abducted by Al-Shabaab militants in Gerille Town.
Mr Edward Mule’s wife, Ms Monah Garisse Mule, remembers bidding farewell to her husband on the noon of January 11 in Garissa.
He had an official assignment in Gerille Town on the Kenya-Somalia border, and had said he would be away for at least seven days.
“I was expecting my husband back on January 13 as he had told me he had a week-long assignment but he would return in three days,” recalls Ms Mule.
“When I did not get word from him after three days, I thought he had been delayed. Later on in the day, around 3pm, a neighbour came to inform me that there had been an Al-Shabaab attack at Gerille, and that the news was being transmitted by a Somali dialect radio station.
"I got scared and prayed that my husband was safe.”
Mrs Mule immediately called her father and her father-in-law to inform them of what had transpired.
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About 100 Al-Shabaab fighters had attacked and destroyed an Administration Police camp at Gerille. Six Kenyans were killed and three abducted.
Of the three abducted men, two were civil servants — Edward Mule, a DO, and Fredrick Irungu, an immigration clerk.
Her father-in-law called her on January 14 with the news that the militants had taken their victims to Kismayu on the eastern coast of Somalia.
The rest of the Yesse family has been deeply affected by the tragedy.
“Words cannot describe the agony I have undergone this past one month,” says Mrs Emma Yesse, the mother of Edward Mule.
“Nobody should ever have to go through what I have been through as a mother and as a family.”
She last saw her son in September last year, and the last time she heard from him was late last year when he called to inform her of being transferred from Garissa to Wajir.
“Mule is a very hard-working, dedicated, obedient and humble person, that was why despite complaining to me that Wajir is a hardship and insecure area, he would never have refused the transfer,” Mrs Yesse said.
This was Mr Mule’s second year as a district officer.
He had made plans to spend last Christmas with his family in Nairobi, but was recalled to Garissa on December 23, 2011.
Mrs Yesse is still wondering why her son was abducted.
“He is just a simple civil servant trying to earn his daily bread. The Government tells us that they are searching for him, and since he was their employee, I have to believe that they will bring him back safe,” she said.
“Every knock on the door I hear, I hope it is Mule coming home. I am appealing to the people who abducted him to bring him back, or to at least allow him to make a phone call.”
Mr Mule’s younger brother, Komora Yesse, has been equally affected.
“It has been a trying experience which has even affected my performance at work because I live every day expecting to see my brother back,” he says.
“It is very hard to live normally knowing your loved one — I have known Mule for over four years — is in someone else’s hands,” she said.Mrs Mule appeals to the government to step up efforts to trace her husband.
“I worry whether he has eaten or even slept,” she said.
Col Cyrus Oguna, who is in charge of information and operations at the Department of Defence, said the Gerille incident was an indicator of the difficulty of telling apart Al-Shabaab members from ordinary Somalia citizens, some who pretend to be seeking medical assistance across the border as they carry out surveillance on possible targets.
He said given the nature of the war with Al-Shabaab militants, the abduction was an isolated case, but that such incidents are not entirely unexpected.
He said the Kenyan Government was trying to negotiate for the release of those abducted.

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