Photos and videos circulating on social media showed a large crowd of youthful demonstrators gathered at Sololo junction as thick smoke from burning tyres filled the sky above the road.
Motorists were stranded for hours unable to pass through the blocked section of the highway that links northern Kenya to the Ethiopian border through Moyale.
Protesters said one of the elders was taken from his home on Saturday May 9 while the second was abducted while travelling to Nairobi when armed individuals forcibly dragged him into an unregistered vehicle and drove away. The whereabouts of both men remained unknown at the time of reporting.
Demonstrators accused security agencies of failing to act decisively on what they described as rising cases of enforced disappearances in the region.
They specifically pointed fingers at the National Police Service saying the masked men who carried out the abductions were believed to be security agents.
"Ex-Senior Chiefs were abducted by armed masked men who are believed to be National Police Service agents," the protesters stated in messages shared alongside the demonstration footage.
The community further alleged that the two elders had previously spoken out against what they called an injustice by the Ministry of Interior involving the gazetting of parts of Marsabit County's Moyale Constituency as belonging to Wajir County's Eldas Constituency.
They said the elders had been vocal opponents of the boundary changes affecting Boranaland and that their abduction was linked to that activism.
Demonstrators carried placards and called on the National Police Service and the Ministry of Interior to publicly account for the two men and confirm their safety.
They demanded immediate intervention from security agencies and the unconditional return of the elders to their families.
Travellers and transporters using the busy northern corridor were left stranded as tensions in the area remained high throughout the morning.
The highway is a critical route for trade and movement between Kenya and Ethiopia making the disruption felt well beyond the immediate community.
Security agencies and the county government had not issued any public statement addressing the protests or the whereabouts of the two elders by the time of publishing.
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