‘It was hell under the Al-Shabaab’

For a year and a half, captured Kenyans Yesse Mule and Fredrick Wainaina spent most of their time bound in chains with their eyes blindfolded.

“Our days were basically dark days. Black days. Days without colour. You wake up and you can’t see any colour. Everything was in shadows,” Mr Mule recalled in an interview with the Daily Nation Thursday.

As he recounted his tale, his wife Monah and his mother Emma, were by his side, listening intently.

All the time the two Kenyans were in captivity, they were at the mercy of the feared Al-Shabaab militants who seized them in the north-eastern Wajir frontier district where they were working as government officers. Mr Mule was a district officer while Mr Wainaina was an official with the department of registration of persons.

During their captivity, they did not know where they were except on the day they were taken to be paraded in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

That was when they were captured on a video that was later posted on the Internet.

In the video, the captives had been tied to pick-ups which were driven around Mogadishu. Residents were forced to line up the streets and watch.

“That was terrible,” Mr Mule recalled yesterday. He expected to be shot at any time.

“Every second and every minute, your life is in danger,” Mr Mule said of his ordeal in captivity.

“You are not protected by any law. You are just living at their will.”

But their ordeal came to an end when they were freed on Sunday. And Thursday, tears of joy flowed as the two were reunited with their loved ones.

Six lay dead

On January 12, 2012 — the day that Mr Mule was captured — over 100 Al-Shabaab fighters raided the Gerille Administration Police post near the Kenya/Somalia border. They overpowered the police guards and after five hours of gun battle six Kenyans lay dead and Mr Mule was a hostage.

“God refused to let us die,” he said. “ I asked my colleague (Wainaina) we pray. He baptised me and in turn I did the same to him.”

They confessed their sins and were ready to die but bullets would fall not too far from where they were.

When the bullets stopped raining around them, they thought all was well… until they heard a voice commanding them to lie face down and strip.

Then their journey into captivity started, three months after Kenya Defence Forces soldiers had crossed into Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab, which had been accused of crossing into Kenya for terror raids.

Life in captivity was plain hell. Mr Mule and Mr Wainaina were moved from place to place every so often. “I think we counted 13 places,” Mr Mule recalled.

Twice he caught malaria and once he was down with cholera. “Wainaina helped me to move around,” he said.

At one time, he was weak from dehydration and Al-Shabaab doctors put him on a drip.

‘Very far’

The detention centres they were taken to were “very far” from the border judging by the distance they travelled.

“I’ve never been to Somalia so I could not know where we were held,” he said.

Only a few of the militants could speak either English or Kiswahili, so the captives had to learn a few Somali words to help them survive.

That way, they could know when it was time to eat, when to move or to perform other chores.

According to Mr Mule, Al-Shabaab is not just a militia, but an “organised informal government,” with a political wing.

While the armed militia guarded them around the clock, the political chiefs took over when captives were required to take part in video shoots, like the one in which Mr Mule and Mr Wainaina were seen asking for help from Kenyan authorities.

In one of the videos, Mr Mule is seen reading from a script: “My dear Kenyans, my life and the lives of our fellow Kenyan prisoners depend on how you respond to this message. “I am afraid that this may be the last message that you may hear from any of us in the near future. Please put yourselves in our shoes and consider the best possible course of action in securing our freedom.”

The abductors had described the clip as “the final message” on Al-Shabaab’s Twitter account, which has since been suspended.

‘Executed’

The message said: “Following the expiry of this period, all the kaffir (non-Muslim) Kenyan prisoners who appeared in the recent video will be executed.”

For the captives to be freed, the terrorist group demanded that its members arrested by Kenyan authorities be released by Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2012.

Despite their tribulations, the captives never went for a day without food. Their main diet was spaghetti, rice and the occasional pieces of meat.

Meals were served two times a day. Occasionally, they were also served with tea and milk.

Mr Mule said that he was surprised that within the terrorist’s ranks there were those with medical knowledge. He however said they always kept their faces covered.

Sometimes he felt dehumanised. “They would not hand the food to you for the first seven months. They would just kick it towards you. It made me feel bad because even a dog is not treated like that.”

With time however their captors mellowed and would offer them food politely. “Mula, Mula,” they would say by was of inviting their hostages to eat.

Kenyan authorities said no ransom was paid to secure the pair’s release.

“The government just negotiated and spoke to the people involved. We don’t have a way of paying through public funds,” Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Security, Joseph Ole Lenku said.

Mr Mule was also granted the rare chance to choose a station he would like to be posted to once he returns to work.

But he asked: “Why would I be afraid (to go back to Wajir)? I am a man.”