Kenyan in Saudi Arabia seeks help to come back home

Margaret Dan Mutua

Margaret Dan Mutua who stuck in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after she was involved in an accident.

Photo credit: Oscar Kakai | Nation Media Group

A widowed Kenyan mother of five who is bedridden after being involved in an accident in Saudi Arabia three months ago is crying out for help.

Margaret Dan Mutua, 43, says her leg is rotten, but she is unable to get medical care because she does not have the relevant papers as the employer she left withheld them while others were lost in the accident. She adds that her efforts to get help from the Kenyan Embassy have failed to bear fruit as she does not have any papers to prove her nationality.

She left Kenya on June 26, 2021, to seek greener pastures in the Gulf nation and worked as a house help on a two-year contract. She says that she had escaped from her employer due to poor working conditions.

Urgent medical attention

“I have become a burden to people. I have tried a number of hospitals in vain. My leg needs urgent medical attention,” she states, pleading with the government to help get back home.

But the situation back home is worse. Margaret’s sister Joyce Mutua reveals that Margaret’s second-born child was admitted at Kenyatta National Hospital after she got burnt and needs Sh200,000 for treatment. Their father is also ailing.

“We are seeking help for her to get back home. I fear we might lose her if she does not get medical help soon,” Joyce said.

Margaret recalls waking up with excruciating pain and a broken leg in a ward at King Suleiman Government Hospital in Saudi Arabia on January 30. The woman, who hails from Kalunga village in Kathiani, Machakos County, claims she was asked to leave the hospital for lack of identity documents.

She does not recall how she got to the hospital. But she remembers crossing the road while coming from working one early morning and being knocked down by a speeding vehicle. In the accident, she says she lost everything, including her phone and the contacts stored therein.

Food donations

After the hospital sent her away upon regaining consciousness, she claims she ended up on the streets where she depended on well-wishers for food donations, before a well-wisher with who is currently staying took her in.

Twalib Sunduli Nacheri, the Kenyan hosting Margaret says he found her on March 27 living in a tent and in severe pain.