ionigeria.com Nigerian Newspaper
Mercy Baguma, who died in the UK where she had been seeking asylum, has been buried near her family home in Uganda.
In August, her body was found in a flat in Glasgow near her crying child.
It is not yet clear how Ms Baguma died but the case prompted calls for changes to the asylum system in the UK.
Charity Positive Action in Housing (PAIH) , which had been helping her, said she was “effectively destitute” as she was unable to get a job because her right to work in the UK had expired.
Eric Nnanna, the father of Ms Baguma’s one-year-old son Adriel, called the police four days after he had last had contact with her.
He was worried as he had heard the sounds of his son crying from inside her locked flat.
Baby ‘alone for three days’
The police forced open the door and discovered the 34-year-old’s body in the hallway while Adriel was found alive in his cot.
Her death has been described by police as “unexplained but not suspicious”.
It is thought that Adriel had been alone for at least three days without any food, PAIH said.
The charity helped raise money for the repatriation of Ms Baguma’s body and the funeral costs.
Money raised for baby
She was buried in Bugiri in Uganda, which is 150km (95 miles) east of the capital, Kampala.
PAIH said the remaining funds, totalling about £75,000 ($97,000), would be placed in a trust for Adriel.
It has called for a public inquiry into her death and those of other asylum seekers in Glasgow, as well as into asylum seeker accommodation in the Scottish city.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said “wholesale reform” of the asylum system was needed, starting from “the principle of dignity, of empathy and of support for our fellow human beings”.
The UK’s Home Office said it would investigate Ms Baguma’s case.
She is believed to have arrived in the UK as a student some 15 or so years ago, the Guardian newspaper reports.
Mr Nnanna, who is originally from Nigeria, met the “charming and lovely” Ms Baguma in 2017, he told the Glasgow Times.
