Nairobi, Kenya (CNN)An American couple living in Nairobi, Kenya, is demanding answers after a 3-year-old boy in their custody, they say, was taken away by authorities last month without explanation.
Surveillance footage from April 5, obtained by CNN, shows two cars pull up to the Mazzoncinis' apartment complex and a group of people piling out. Shortly after, two women, their faces obscured by headscarves, can be seen carrying the boy downstairs and out of the building. That was the last time Matt and Daisy Mazzoncini saw Kiano, whom they say they've been caring for since he was 6 months old.
"I had just finished putting Kiano to bed and he had just fallen asleep and I walked out of his room and saw Matt's face and all these people and I just knew something was really wrong," Daisy told CNN. Kiano, who is Kenyan, was found as a newborn abandoned along with another baby believed to be his twin, according to a police report. The twin later died.
After receiving medical treatment, Kiano was taken to Mogra Children's Centre orphanage in Kiambu, Nairobi. Daisy met Kiano when she began volunteering at the orphanage in the summer of 2016, and she soon started helping to pay for his medical bills. As an infant, Kiano suffered from pneumonia and a chest deformity, according to Matt, but in 2018 was diagnosed with atypical febrile seizures, according to medical documents seen by CNN.
Daisy sitting by Kiano's bedside at the hospital. He has been treated multiple times for seizures. Daisy and her husband Matt were named Kiano's legal guardians by the Children's Court of Nairobi in April 2017. However, the order specified Kiano would not leave the jurisdiction of the court without the court's permission. But they say the plainclothes police that showed up at their home told them the guardianship order was fraudulent.