Mwakilishi News Bulletin - Midday Edition, Thursday 29 October 2026

Midday Edition for Thursday, 29 October 2026. Running time 8:18.

In this bulletin

Diaspora News

1. Family Seeks Help to Bring PhD Fellow's Body Home
2. Kenyans in Brazil Offered Four-Day Consular Outreach
3. Burial Set for Kenyan Student Found Dead in River Cam
4. ICE Arrests Kenyan Child Welfare Employee in Washington State
5. US Charges Kenyan and Five Others Over Madagascar Crypto Fraud (see also: Kenyan Among Six Charged in US Over Alleged Crypto Investment Fraud Run From Madagascar)

Immigration News

1. EB-5 Filing Fees to Rise Sharply From November 30

Kenya News

1. Twenty Still Missing in Eastleigh Collapse
2. Gachagua Says Impeachment Strengthened United Opposition
3. MPs Scrap IEBC Server-Access Guarantee

Transcript

This is the news from Mwakilishi.com.

Good afternoon. It's midday on Thursday, the twenty-ninth of October, and here is your midday edition.

Coming up.

Twenty people still missing after Eastleigh building collapse as families decry slow search.

US seeks extradition of Kenyan and five others over Madagascar crypto scam.

Family of Kenyan PhD fellow dead in Denmark appeals for help repatriating body.

Those stories, and more, in the next few minutes.

Turning to diaspora news, a Kenyan family is appealing for help to bring home the body of their son, Emmanuel Ng'etich, a PhD candidate and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow who died in Denmark. Danish authorities found him dead at his residence on the twentieth of October, twenty twenty-six, but his relatives in Kenya were not officially notified until five days later, on the twenty-fifth. Reporting by Wisevoter, an online news and civic research platform, brought the gap to public attention, noting poor coordination among academic supervisors, host institutions and diplomatic missions. The family, still reeling from the recent loss of another son, has launched an M-Changa fundraiser with the diaspora in Denmark.

Staying with the diaspora, Kenyans in Brazil have been given a four-day window to sort out passports, citizenship papers and birth certificates for children born abroad. The Kenyan Embassy in Brasília and the State Department for Diaspora Affairs announced the schedule in a joint notice on Thursday. Consular officers will visit São Paulo on the first and second of November, then Brasília on the third and fourth. Under Kenyan law, citizens who acquired foreign nationality before the twenty-ten Constitution must follow a formal process to regain citizenship, and this drive offers a direct route. Embassy officials are encouraging Kenyans in South America to spread word of the exercise.

Also from the diaspora, preparations are underway to bury Nelbert Kipruto Rirei at his family home in Nariri Village, Kesses, in Uasin Gishu County, on Saturday. The student's body was retrieved from the River Cam in Cambridge. A UK post-mortem found no signs of physical trauma or suspicious circumstances, but the pathologist could not immediately establish the cause of death, and laboratory results are expected to take several weeks. His remains arrived in Eldoret on Wednesday afternoon. The funeral cortege leaves the Eldoret Hospital Mortuary at nine in the morning on Friday, with the burial service set for nine on Saturday. The family will live stream proceedings for friends in the UK who cannot attend.

Still with Kenyans abroad, a Kenyan employee of a child welfare agency in Washington State has been arrested by US immigration officers over a visa overstay. Stanley Robert Kungu Muthee was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a traffic stop on Monday, wearing an official jacket and carrying an identity card from the Department of Children, Youth and Families. Federal records indicate he entered the United States on a tourist visa in February twenty nineteen and stayed on after it expired. He faces no criminal charges, only an alleged administrative violation. Communications director Nancy Gutierrez said he provided proper documentation when hired, including a valid Citizenship and Immigration Services number with no expiration date.

Staying with Kenyans overseas, US authorities are seeking the extradition of six foreign nationals, including Kenyan Nicodemus Hingima Monyancha, over an alleged cryptocurrency and romance fraud ring run from Madagascar that defrauded about eight hundred Americans. The charges, announced Wednesday by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro under the Justice Department's Scam Center Strike Force, name a Ugandan, two Rwandans, a Cameroonian and Chinese Chui Kok Wa, identified as the alleged leader. Prosecutors say the syndicate used fake dating profiles to steer victims to fraudulent investment platforms, then emptied their digital wallets. Investigators found seventy-four wallets linked to the scam. The group reportedly set up scam compounds in Madagascar in early twenty twenty-five after relocating from Cambodia.

Turning to immigration news, foreign investors seeking US permanent residence through the EB-5 programme will pay sharply higher filing fees from the thirtieth of November, twenty twenty-six. The Department of Homeland Security says the schedule covers nine forms and affects roughly sixteen thousand six hundred filings a year, a weighted average rise of seventy point seven percent, about two thousand nine hundred and forty-six dollars more per filing. The headline increase falls on the standalone investor petition, rising from three thousand six hundred and seventy-five dollars to seven thousand six hundred and fifteen dollars, including a seventy-five dollar technology fee. The programme requires investments of at least eight hundred thousand dollars in targeted employment areas.

Turning to news from Kenya, twenty people remain missing after a building collapsed in Eastleigh, Nairobi, and distraught families at the site are decrying the slow pace of the search. Rescue teams have been working through the rubble since the collapse, with relatives keeping vigil as they wait for news of their loved ones. The Daily Nation has reported that rescue operations were set to end, even with the twenty still unaccounted for, adding to the distress of families who have watched the operation proceed without word of their relatives. The reports gave no details on the scale of the effort, the equipment being used, or the progress made so far.

Staying with Kenya, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua says his October twenty twenty-four impeachment ultimately strengthened the United Opposition while dismantling President William Ruto's core political base in Mount Kenya. Speaking on KTN on Wednesday, the Democracy for the Citizens Party leader said he holds no bitterness toward Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna or former opposition figures who voted to remove him. Gachagua said Sifuna explained, at a meeting on the twentieth of October, that ODM leaders capitalized on President Ruto's offer to remove his deputy, aiming to sever his relationship with the Mount Kenya voting bloc. He and Sifuna are now co-principals consulting on a single flag bearer for the twenty twenty-seven election.

Also from Kenya, members of Parliament have scrapped a provision that would have guaranteed access to the servers and technology of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. The Daily Nation reported the guarantee will not become part of the country's election laws, which are under review ahead of the twenty twenty-seven general election. The scrapped provision had proposed guaranteed access to the commission's servers and to the technology used to run elections. The commission is the constitutional body responsible for conducting and supervising elections, managing voter registration and maintaining the national register of voters. Technology has been central to Kenyan elections for more than a decade, with biometric registration first rolled out in twenty thirteen.

And that is your midday edition. The next bulletin is at 6 o'clock this evening. You can read every one of these stories in full, and much more besides, at Mwakilishi.com.

Have a good afternoon.

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