In what seems like something straight out of a Nollywood movie, a woman showed up at her own funeral!
Noela Rukundo, a Burundian residing in Melbourne, Australia for eleven years has been married to her husband, Balenga Kalala, for about a decade.
Rukundo’s ordeal began almost a year ago, when she flew from her home in Melbourne with her husband to attend the funeral of her stepmother in her native country. Despondent after the events of the day, she retreated to her hotel room in Bujumbura, the capital.
Then her husband called. He told her to go outside for fresh air. But the minute Rukundo stepped out of her hotel, she was held at gunpoint, blindfolded and kidnapped.
After being taken to a building in an undisclosed location, where there were more men, she was tied to a chair. It was there that she heard her husband’s voice via a phone call ordering the men to kill her.
But her kidnappers decided to eat their cake and have it. They knew her brother, so they decided not to kill her, but they kept the money her husband paid. The kidnappers left Rukundo by the side of the road after two days, with a cellphone, recordings of the kidnappers phone conversations with her husband and receipts for the $7,000 in Australian dollars they allegedly received in payment.
They wanted her to go share her experience with other gullible women like her.
The mother of eight not only did that, she also told the world.
She sought help from the Kenyan and Belgian embassies to return to Australia. Then she called the pastor of her church in Melbourne, and explained to him what had happened. Without alerting Kalala, the pastor helped her get back home to her neighborhood near Melbourne.
Meanwhile, her husband had told everyone she had died in a tragic accident and the entire community mourned her at her funeral at the family home.
On the night of Feb. 22, 2015, just as he waved goodbye to neighbours who had come to comfort him, Rukundo approached him, the very man who ordered her death like he was ordering pizza.
Kalala Though Kalala initially denied all involvement, Rukundo got him to confess to the crime during a phone conversation that was secretly recorded by police.
“Sometimes Devil can come into someone, to do something, but after they do it they start thinking, ‘Why I did that thing?’ later,” he said, as he begged her to forgive him.
Kalala eventually pleaded guilty to the scheme. He was sentenced to nine years in prison by a judge in Melbourne.
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