A Ugandan woman working in Saudi Arabia as a house help has been found dead in her servant room under suspicious circumstances. Fatuma Namugombe, 24 was reported dead on Monday after an altercation with her Saudi Arabian employers regarding her unpaid wage arrears.
According to Mr Were Kharim, a relative to the deceased, they last heard from her on Saturday last week when they spoke with her on phone. He says that at the time of his interaction with the late, there was no any signs of sickness and the news of her death was very shocking.
” We need to find answers. We suspect foul play in our daughter’s death because we had been communicating with her regularly and there was no hint at all that she was sick. I last talked to her last Saturday before her death two days later. We need to find justice for her.” Were told Watchdog.
Namugombe, daughter to Mr. Lujja Hamza and Namugawe Hadijah in Butalejja district left Uganda in 2019 and headed to the middle East in search for a better future for herself and her impoverished family, unaware she would return in a casket.
One family member told this publication that a workmate to the deceased, a fellow domestic worker of Indonesian origin had confided them that Fatumah had had disagreements with her bosses stemming from going months without pay and attempting to transfer her to another family.
She said that Fatuma had resisted the move, arguing that she would only move to the family they were pushing her to provide her wage arrears were cleared to zero balance. The next thing they heard was that she had died in her room during the night.
Although it is still not clear whether there were any signs of a struggle on the deceased body at the moment, a photo shared by her workmates and seen by Watchdog Uganda points to a possible foul play.
Namugombe becomes the last addition to the list of the victims of the brutal, inhuman treatment of foreign labor in the Middle East.
Last month, the Ministry of Labour and Social Development announced that the Government would will not renew its labor agreement with the oil-rich Arab country due to concerns of how Ugandans are treated while at work among other reasons.
