Simon Wa Kahari

Grace Wangare Thini is STILL missing. A 16 year old girl vanished from St. Francis Mangu Girls High School and as every hour passes, the silence from those responsible becomes more suspicious, more painful and more dangerous. Kenyans must refuse to sleep on this matter. A child disappeared inside a boarding school. Not in a market. Not during riots. Not while travelling alone. Inside a controlled institution with gates, matrons, teachers, guards, dormitories and strict movement schedules. That child did not simply evaporate into thin air. The school knows something. People inside that institution know what happened that night in that dormitory. And instead of urgency, transparency and cooperation, what are we seeing? Silence. Deflection. Arrogance. Closed doors. The principal is avoiding accountability while the Sub County Education Director appears more interested in shielding the school than helping a desperate family find their daughter. This is no longer incompetence. This is beginning to look like a deliberate effort to suppress the truth. Meanwhile Grace’s parents are collapsing emotionally. Her mother cries herself to sleep not knowing whether her daughter is cold, injured, terrified or even alive. Her father is battling hypertension from stress and helplessness. Imagine carrying your child for nine months, raising her, educating her, trusting a school with her future only for that child to disappear and the institution responds with silence and bureaucracy. That pain can kill a parent. Kenyans, this family cannot fight alone. We must make noise. We must demand answers. We must force action. Call the Ministry of Education. Tag the DCI. Tag child protection agencies. Demand CCTV footage. Demand accountability from the principal. Demand immediate public communication from the school. Because if a Form Four girl can disappear from one of the most guarded schools in Kenya and people remain silent, then no parent in this country should ever feel safe again. Grace Wangare Thini is not a statistic. She is a child. And until she is found, this country must not rest.

A 16 year old girl vanished from one of the most guarded girls schools in Kenya and the people running that institution are behaving like we are disturbing their peace by asking questions. Read that again slowly. A WHOLE CHILD disappeared. Not outside a nightclub. Not in a forest. Not during chaos. Inside a boarding school. Inside St. Francis Mangu Girls in Kiambu County. And what is shocking is not just the disappearance of Grace Wangare Thini. It is the coldness. The silence. The arrogance. The complete absence of urgency from people entrusted with children. Grace disappeared on 10th April 2025. The school only realised she was missing the following day after a teacher attending the third lesson noticed she was absent from class. Meaning for hours nobody knew where she was. Nobody checked. Nobody panicked. Nobody cared enough to immediately raise alarm. This is a Form Four student living under school control, not an adult renting her own apartment in Nairobi. So how does a child disappear from a highly secured boarding school without answers? Today together with Maina Magret and Amos Koech we went to that school seeking one thing only: Truth. But what we found was walls. The principal refused to face us. The secretary redirected us like we were beggars asking for favours instead of citizens demanding accountability for a missing child. Then came the deputy principal Mrs Gitonga in charge of curriculum. The attitude alone told a story. Arrogant. Dismissive. Defensive. The kind of behaviour public officials display when they know something is wrong but believe ordinary Kenyans are too powerless to push further. Simple questions became a problem. Who last saw Grace? Which teacher was on duty? Which gate did she pass? Was CCTV reviewed? Were students questioned immediately? Did she leave alone? Was she assisted? Why the delay in informing the parents? No straight answers. Only referrals. Excuses. Bureaucratic games. They referred us to the Sub County Education Director over 40 kilometres away as if this is a paperwork issue and not a missing child crisis. Meanwhile Grace’s parents are dying slowly. Her father Mr Thini is battling hypertension from stress and emotional torture. Her mother Eunice Wairimu is surviving on tears, prayers and hope. Every day they travel from Naivasha near Wanyua Junction searching for answers no parent should ever beg for. Imagine waking up every morning not knowing whether your daughter is alive, injured, kidnapped or dead. Then imagine the institution responsible for her safety treating you like an inconvenience. That is the cruelty this family is facing. And Kenyans must stop normalising this madness. A school cannot lose a child then hide behind offices and titles. This country has become dangerously comfortable with institutional silence. When poor families cry, powerful offices close ranks. When children disappear, systems protect reputations first before human life. That is why this case must not die. The DCI, Ministry of Education, Child Protection agencies and every security organ in Kenya must move with speed and seriousness. Because Grace Wangare Thini is not just another name. She is somebody’s daughter. And tonight somewhere in Kenya, two parents are staring at a silent phone praying it rings with news that their child is still alive.