Diana Chepkemoi, the Kenyan university student who was reportedly being held against her will by her employer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has finally arrived in the country.
Emotions ran high at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Tuesday afternoon as friends and family of Diana received her.
Her mother Clara Chepkemoi thanked all those Kenyans who worked hard to highlight the plight of her daughter and the efforts to bring her home.
“I am very grateful at this moment. It is better to hustle in your own country and have peace,” she said.
On her part, an emotional Diana said that she is not the only Kenyan suffering at the hands of cruel employers in the middle east, urging the government to look into the situation and rescue hundreds of Kenyans.
“I left Kenya to go to Saudi Arabia with the hopes of getting a better life and to be honest, mine was just a tip on the iceberg, people are suffering there. My friends are suffering there. I’m just pleading with the government, just please do something about them. I am back because at least for me I had a voice.
Earlier, Kenyans online had rallied behind Diana’s plight. Photos of her current state depicted her as scrawny and unhappy.
Diana, a Food Science and Management student at Meru University, had been driven by desperation to seek employment in the gulf nation, in order to raise fees for her studies.
She left the country in January 2021 in search of greener pastures.
“She looked for ways to make a living until mid-last year she got an opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker,” Diana’s sister Cheptoo had earlier told journalists.
Documents confiscated
Everything was all good up until July when Diana’s boss is said to have confiscated all her documents and mobile phone thus making communication between her and her family hard.
Cheptoo says that her sister fell sick in the later months of 2021 but she was denied access to medical attention as her boss insisted that she must complete her work as per the terms of their contract.
“We tried to talk to the boss and he said Diana is yet to complete her working days as per the contract she signed and is now holding her hostage. Once you see those photos circulating online, you will agree that my sister needs all the help she can get immediately, I am scared she might not make it home alive,” she added.
Diana’s agent Susan Makungu who facilitated her flight to Saudi says that the agency had tried its level best but its efforts had been futile.
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