A 25-year old Burundian narrated to a Kenyan court how her dream to work in Saudi Arabia was cut short by two Kenyan men, one of whom she befriended on Facebook, after they were arrested for human trafficking at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
Mukandekezi Husna was just a few kilometres from the JKIA airport where she was to board a flight to Saudia Arabia for work as a house ‘manager’, a job she had desired for a long time.
Husna, who told the Nairobi court on Monday, April 12, that she has no formal education, said she developed interest in working in Saudi Arabia after interacting with friends who have been working there through Facebook.
One of them informed her of an available job as a house manager, beginning a series of events that culminated in her arrest near JKIA.
Husna, who is a farmer’s daughter with nine other siblings, said that only three of her siblings have been to school upto Class Six.
To take up the Saudi Arabia, the desperate and vulnerable Husna said that she had to leave her marriage of five months.
The single-mother of one said that she entered Kenya on December 9, 2020, through the Tanzania-Burundi border.
To cross into Kenya, she was aided by a Kenyan man who took her passport and seemed to have paid off for uninterrupted passage at all the checkpoints.
When they reached Kenya, she said she was booked into a hotel whose name she can’t recall.
While at the hotel, someone took a blood sample from her and she was later given a medical report, a document whose content she did not comprehend.
She continued staying in the hotel until the Kenyan man took her to a bus termini where he gave her Sh100 for fair and told her to alight at the airport check in.
But at the airport check-in gate, Husna said the security officers who took her documents informed her that she was under arrest.
Her arrest followed that of two Kenyans, Bonface Kanuku Mutia and Dennis Malulu Mulandi, who police suspect of involvement in trafficking of persons from Burundi through Tanzania, Kenya and onwards to Saudi Arabia through JKIA.
The two suspects were on Monday, April 13, charged with the trafficking of persons and granted Sh1 million bond.
They were accused of receiving and transferring two Burundian nationals for the purpose of exploitation and deception on February 19, 2021, through the JKIA airport.
