NAIROBI: Tanzania’s police force said it was investigating reports that a former ambassador turned government critic had been kidnapped after his family said he was forcefully taken from his house.
Several critics of the government of President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who will stand for re-election on October 29, have disappeared since last year, with opposition parties alleging a campaign of abductions.
Humphrey Polepole, who resigned as ambassador to Cuba in July and has repeatedly and harshly criticized Tanzania’s ruling party in the months since, went missing from his home in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam early on Monday, his brother, Godfrey Polepole, told Reuters.
“The main door entering the house was broken and the door to the bedroom was broken as well,” he said. “There was a lot of blood from the sitting room all the way to the bedroom and the bloodstains continued even outside toward the gate area.”
Hassan, who won plaudits after coming to power in 2021 for easing repression of political opponents that was rampant under her predecessor, ordered an investigation last year into reports of abductions, but no official findings have been made public.
