Mary Kamajo was only allowed to return to Kenya after her condition deteriorated significantly. Zipo
On Friday, July 29, a Kenyan woman named Mary Kibawana Kamajo lost her three-month battle to stay alive. Kamajo, a Kenyan immigrant who worked in Lebanon as a house maid, was set ablaze in April of this year by her cruel Lebanese employer and left to die.
Just 31 years old, Kamajo had moved to the Middle East in search of the proverbial greener pastures. But with little formal qualification, she soon had to settle for a menial job working as a domestic maid for a Lebanese family. Like many Africans immigrants working in the Middle East she suffered constant discrimination in addition to verbal and physical abuse.
Kamajo says her Arab boss, his wife, and their daughter treated her very poorly. She recalls:
My female boss and her daughter would often beat me for the most trivial of reasons. They would also give me bad food. I had no breaks from work and I would toil from 6 am daily to late in the night. They took my passport away the day I arrived and I had no access to a calendar so I never knew what day it was, let alone the time.
The cruelty from Kamajo’s employers took a vicious, new turn earlier this year, however, when her boss willfully set her ablaze by igniting a gas cylinder, causing her serious burns. Kamajo remembers the day as the 17 of April. She says on that day, she was in the middle of her usual domestic chores when her employer attacked her with fire.
“My clothes and lower body immediately caught fire before it spread to my chest. I managed to run to the bathroom where I passed out,” Kamajo stated. She describes regaining consciousness only to find her boss still pouring invectives on her while kicking her around.
Mary Kibawana Kamajo, a Kenyan immigrant was attacked with fire by her Lebanese employer. Ghafla
The attack left Kamajo with extensive third-degree burns covering some 47 percent of her body. She was only rescued after a kind neighbour heard her screams and alerted the police, who rushed her to a hospital.
Kamajo was in a hospital in Lebanon for at least six weeks, and in that time she says her employer refused to inform her family back in Kenya about her ordeal; he also denied her access to a phone so that she could not directly contact her family members.
I would cry every day, begging the doctors and the nurses to send me home but nobody listened. I begged to be allowed to speak to the Kenyan embassy but the people in the hospital ignored me,” she said.
In the end, Kamajo was returned to Kenya with the assistance of a Kenyan lawmaker only after her condition had deteriorated significantly and she was on the brink of death. Upon arrival in Kenya, she was immediately taken to the Kenyatta National Hospital for intensive care.
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Kenyan medical personnel, Mary Kamajo did not make it out of the hospital alive. Her sad death came last Friday after enduring months of excruciating pain. She leaves behind four young children.
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A bloody Turk (Turkic Arab) from Lebanon killed an innocent African woman----and what have African men done about it? Nothing? Still busy worshiping the Turks who rule Lebanon?
A bloody Turk (Turkic Arab) from Lebanon killed an innocent African woman----and what have African men done about it? Nothing? Still busy worshiping the Turks who rule Lebanon? In Nigeria and throughout West Africa, the Lebanese and other foreign nationals are running amok----physically and sexually abusing our women with impunity. There must be maximum reprisals for this act, ladies and gentlemen.
You know that you right !
Voices rising too late! When this happened, someone in the embassy should have acted immediately. Crimes against women continue to happen worldwide in the name of religion, tradition and racial discrimination, and our collective voices are silent until it's too late!! This is a diplomatic matter and as I said before, someone in the Kenyan embassy should have done something!
Are you trying to insight an uprising to bring more harm? That is the most stupid statement I have read. This incident happened in Jordan & the reporter is just posting without finding out the truth of the story.
I believe whoever did this horrible act should be hanged by the balls but it doesn't define all Arabs. We've seen worse happen in African countries to fellow Africans but it doesn't mean all Africans are like that.
If you ask me, the Kenyan authorities should demand justice for the woman from the family that did such act. That's the right thing to do.
Eddie you are like one of those weak men, this woman is very sincere to this matter and of course these in human beings don't understand any language than receiving equally such inflicted pains. In Africa we treat these people with a lot of respect why most we be dehumanized ?. Is so painful. Eddie speak like a man imagine your wife with four children? my guy wake up
As a good Lebanese (who left Lebanon 20 years ago) and human being I am so sorry and sorry is too weak of a word for what this Lebanese family has done. Yes lots of Lebanese are racist and very cruel and if I can't say that about my fellow Lebanese we will never be able to address these problems and crimes done towards migrant workers. Your daughter, your mother didn't deserve this and from the bottom of my heart I feel your pain. This is horrific specially from the hospital members who have sworn to first do no harm. So sorry. So very sorry.
This tragedy happened in Saudi Arabia by Saudi Nationals and not in Lebanon by Lebanese. Google it and you'll see.
It breaks my heart to read this. May your soul rest in peace. No one deserves to go through what you and others are going. Different source of oppression based on gender, race, sexual orientation. Discrimination has no nationality and it should be fought in all ways.
It really brought tears to my eyes. We have beasts parading as humans in these Arabic countries.
We have beasts parading as humans all over the world... in french we got a say that matches this situation : "balaye devant ta porte avant de balayer devant celle des autres". In short, everyone should clean up their own backyard, as the saying goes!
It didn't happen in Lebanon.
How can a human being possibly be cruel to this extent
This incident happened in Saudi, not Lebanon. If I was mistaken and it happened in Lebanon, may I please know the name of the offender?
Can you please give methe name of the family in Lebanon and the name of the hospital?
She was in KNH Hospital in Jordan and not lebanon! Everything about this article is wrong!
Please educate yourself before mistaken Columbia for Colombia!