No Surge of Missing Children, Police Spokesperson Says

National Police Service (NPS) has clarified that there is no surge in cases of missing children across the country, contrary to public perception fuelled by social media.

Speaking on Citizen TV, Police Spokesperson Muchiri Nyaga presented official police data showing that missing children cases have remained relatively stable over recent years, with no sudden emergency.

According to Nyaga, official police records for 2026 show 139 cases reported so far this year. In 2025, a total of 754 cases were officially reported, while 2024 recorded 1,276 cases. He noted that these figures are not significantly different from previous years’ data. Out of the 139 cases recorded in 2026, Nyaga explained that 41 are actively in court, while 52 remain under investigation by police departments. 

The spokesperson also addressed widely circulated clips on social media, cautioning that some content is recycled from past incidents. “Some of the clips that we’ve seen in recent times… are recycled that had been seen at some other point,” he said. “It would place the country at such a point where we suddenly start thinking that we have an emergency of these cases, that is not the case at all.”

Nyaga urged calm and fact-based reporting. “The best approach when talking about these things is to have calmness and to have the facts with us before us,” he stated.

He attributed heightened public concern to increased awareness, faster information spread via social media, and the intrusion of AI-generated fakes. “We really don’t have a surge,” he reiterated. “It’s only that we have a public that is more conscious, much more aware, and the spread of information is much faster.”