KENYA – Kenyan President William Ruto has promised to stop abductions of government critics, in an apparent change of stance for a leader who has previously called the wave of disappearances “fake news.”

Ruto, his government officials and police have maintained for months that there were no abductions. Ruto has also demanded names of the missing from families, and told parliament that the reports were fabricated to tarnish his government’s name. At least 82 government critics have allegedly gone missing after a youth-led protest movement erupted in June against a controversial finance bill, though some have resurfaced.

Ruto’s remarks on Saturday did not acknowledge government culpability for those missing, however. The Kenyan leader also said that parents should better “take care” of their children. “What has been said about abductions, we will stop them so Kenyan youth can live in peace, but they should have discipline and be polite so that we can build Kenya together,” Ruto said at a stadium in Homa Bay, in the west of the country.

Among the disappeared are two young men who shared AI-generated images of Ruto in a casket that some considered offensive and a popular cartoonist whose images of the president went viral. Despite Ruto’s speech, a state-funded human rights body says 29 people remain unaccounted for, including six people who disappeared days before Christmas.

Human rights defenders allege that all of the missing activists and critics are believed to have been tracked down by government intelligence who tapped into phone signals. The protests were widely mobilized online, before they spread onto the streets. Human rights activist Bob Njagi, who said he was abducted this summer, reacted to Ruto’s comment: “It was an admission that they’re happening under their watch, if not by them.”

“This is just damage control, but it does not absolve them of the previous abductions, and we want all the missing people to be set free,” he told CNN. Njagi leads the Free Kenya Movement, which he described as a consortium of organizations united in pursuit of change for the country. He was one of the most prominent figures behind the protests against Ruto’s government before he disappeared. The 47-year-old told CNN he was forcibly dragged out of a matatu (minibus) one night in August by four hooded men wearing black balaclavas, then was blindfolded, beaten and waterboarded. (CNN)