UAE: After 7 months, body of maid flown home with help from residents

Fujairah - Ugandan housemaid died of cardiac arrest in Fujairah.

Ismail Sebugwaawo

Published: Thu 21 Jan 2021, 10:06 AM

Last updated: Thu 21 Jan 2021, 11:00 AM

The body of a Ugandan housemaid who died in Fujairah seven months ago, has finally been flown back home this morning after residents came out to support her poor family.

Mayimuna Nassali, 37, died of cardiac arrest on June 18, 2020 at Fujairah Hospital, according to the death certificate issued by the Ministry of Health and Prevention.

Since then, her body has been languishing in the hospital morgue because her family failed to raise the money required for the repatriation process.

Atter Khaleej Times published her story on Tuesday, several UAE residents came out to support Nassali’s family and helped them fly her body back home for burial.

Abdala Luyimbazi, a Ugandan resident of Dubai, who has been helping the family with the repatriation papers needed to send the body to Uganda said he received several calls from good-hearted residents in UAE offering financial support for the repatriation of the body.

“The kind and generous people of UAE have offered all the money required to repatriate the body to Uganda, up to her home and for the burial,” Luyimbazi told Khaleej Times.

“By Wednesday evening, we were done with all the repatriation process and payment for the airway bill. Nassali’s body will be flown back to Uganda on an Emirates flight, on Thursday morning.”

Father thankful to UAE residents

Nassali’s father, Buruhan Ssali, who stays in Kyotera, Rakai District in Uganda where his daughter’s body will be buried, said the family has been going through difficult times since the death of their beloved daughter.

“I was so devastated by the death of my eldest daughter. The family has been going through hard times and struggling to find money to bring her body back home. We wanted her children to the chance to attend their mother's burial,” Ssali told Khaleej Times on phone, on Wednesday afternoon.

“I am really happy to hear that the people of UAE have come out to support the repatriation process for the body of my daughter. I thank everyone who have extended support to us. May the almighty Allah bless them all.”

The father added: “It has been seven months of waiting and struggling to look for the money to repatriate my daughter’s body. The family had started losing hope of having her body brought back home.”

Nassali’s younger sister, Aisha Nakigudde said the deceased had spent nearly a year in UAE, and had been helping the family.

“We were so saddened by her death. She has been such a lovely sister and was helping everyone in the family,” she said.

Nassali is survived by her four children-all aged below 15, and her parents, who are in Uganda. She had come to the UAE to work as a housemaid so she could take care of her family.

ismail@khaleejtimes.com