The tragic case of Ms. Felister Kemunto, a 32-year-old Kenyan domestic worker who died in Iraq in December 2025, is not an isolated misfortune, it is an indictment. More than a month after her death, her body remains stranded in Baghdad because her family cannot raise the KSh 800,000 demanded for repatriation. They are grieving, confused, and abandoned, struggling to get clear answers from both the employer and the recruitment agency about how she died. This is not just a family crisis, it is a national failure.
For years now, Kenyans in the diaspora have been dying quietly, suffering abuse silently, or returning home in coffins paid for through WhatsApp fundraisers. Some die days after arrival, before earning a single shilling, before adapting to harsh working conditions, before even understanding the legal terrain of the countries they are sent to. Their families are then hit with a second tragedy, the crushing cost of repatriation, often running into hundreds of thousands or millions of shillings. These families had already sold land, borrowed money, or emptied savings to finance migration. When death comes early, it leaves behind nothing but debt, grief, and helplessness.
The Kenya government claims it created a Diaspora Ministry to address these issues. In practice, that ministry has become a hollow public relations project. Kenyans abroad, both living and dead, continue to be stranded. Families are left to beg on social media. The state appears only when cameras are present, or when remittances are being praised in speeches. This is why many Kenyans are asking a painful question, is the diaspora ministry real, or is it a scam funded by taxpayers but invisible when citizens need it most?
Under William Ruto’s administration, diaspora remittances are celebrated as an economic pillar. Billions of dollars flow into Kenya every year, sustaining families, stabilizing the shilling, and propping up the economy. Yet when the very people who generate this lifeline die abroad, the state suddenly pleads helplessness. That contradiction is morally indefensible. You cannot harvest diaspora money with one hand while abandoning diaspora lives with the other.
The existence of the State Department for Diaspora Affairs should mean something tangible. It should mean a standing diaspora emergency fund for repatriation of bodies. It should mean mandatory insurance schemes tied to labor export programs. It should mean bilateral agreements that compel employers and recruitment agencies to take responsibility in cases of death, abuse, or sudden illness. Instead, what we see is silence, buck-passing, and bureaucratic indifference.
The case of Kemunto in Baghdad exposes a brutal truth. Kenyan workers are exported to high-risk environments with little state protection. When tragedy strikes, embassies issue statements, families are told to wait, and time stretches into months. Meanwhile, bodies lie in foreign mortuaries as parents, siblings, and children relive trauma daily, unable to bury their own.
This is not about sympathy tweets. It is about systems. Kenya needs a legally backed diaspora protection framework, not ad hoc responses. Every Kenyan leaving the country for work should be covered by a compulsory, state-regulated repatriation and medical insurance. Recruitment agencies should post bonds that are immediately callable in the event of death or disappearance. Embassies should have clear mandates, budgets, and timelines for resolving such cases, not excuses.
The Ruto administration must also stop pretending that labor export is purely a private affair. When the state actively promotes overseas jobs as a solution to unemployment, it assumes responsibility for what happens to those citizens abroad. You cannot outsource risk and then wash your hands when bodies start coming back, or worse, fail to come back at all.
Diaspora Kenyans are not ATM machines. They are citizens with rights, families, and dignity. Their deaths should not trigger online harambees, they should trigger immediate state action. Their lives should not be valued only through remittance statistics, but through policies that protect them in life and honor them in death.
The government must wake up. This is not charity. This is duty. Until Kenya can guarantee that no family will beg to bring home their dead, the so-called diaspora ministry remains a symbol of betrayal, not service.
