EMBU, Kenya – A grieving family in Embu County is making an urgent appeal for help to bring home the body of their loved one from Saudi Arabia before a looming deadline forces her burial thousands of miles away.
Frida Kageni, 31, from Njukiri Village in Manyatta Constituency, died while receiving treatment in a Saudi Arabian hospital after months of illness.
Her relatives say they were informed of her death through a phone call from Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs on July 7.
According to the family, Frida had travelled to Saudi Arabia seven years ago to work as a domestic worker in the hope of improving her family’s future.
They said she began experiencing health complications earlier this year and was repeatedly admitted to hospital before doctors diagnosed her with meningitis in June.
Now, instead of preparing to welcome her home alive, the family is desperately searching for funds to repatriate her remains.
Their biggest challenge is the cost of transporting the body back to Kenya. They have been told they have until July 21 to complete the repatriation process. If they fail, Frida will be buried in Saudi Arabia.
For her family, the loss extends beyond the death of a daughter and sister. They describe Frida as the family’s sole breadwinner whose income educated her four siblings and sustained the household.
Her mother, Christine Irunda, said the family has been devastated by the tragedy, especially because Frida had carried much of the family’s financial responsibility after her father became unable to work following a serious leg injury.
“She left here seven years ago in search of a good life, and now that it has come to this, all we can ask is to be assisted in having her body brought back home and buried at her place of birth,” she pleaded.
Her father, Samuel Murage, said the family has little time left to raise the required funds.
“As we speak, we have less than two weeks to bring her body back home, and that is why we are appealing to well-wishers to come through for us before it is too late,” he said.
Frida also leaves behind a nine-year-old daughter whose future is now uncertain. Her younger brother, Brian Mugambi, fears the family’s financial struggles will force him to abandon his university education, saying the sister who had been supporting his studies is no longer there.