It was the surprise of a lifetime for Balenga Kalala when Noela Rukundo showed up at her own funeral. Kalala had paid a team of hit men to kill his wife of 10 years. After an attack of conscience, they let her go, and told Kalala that the deed had been done.
Rukundo had flown with her husband from her home in Melbourne to attend her stepmother’s funeral in Burundi. Saddened and stressed, she retired to her hotel room. Her husband called and sympathetically suggested she go outside for some fresh air. That was when the hit men grabbed her.
Pushed into a car and blindfolded, Rukundo was driven for 30 to 40 minutes, then was taken into a building and tied to a chair. A man asked her, “You woman, what did you do for this man to pay us to kill you?” When Rukundo asked what they were talking about, they told her the man was her husband. When Rukundo did not believe them, the kidnappers called her husband and put him on speakerphone so that she could hear him saying “kill her.”
Rukundo fainted. When she regained consciousness the men were still there, but explained that they weren’t going to kill her because they did not believe in killing women. They planned to keep Kalala’s money, $7,000 in Australian dollars, and tell him that she was dead. After two days they set her free on the side of the road. They gave her a mobile phone, along with recordings of their phone conversations and receipts for the money they had been paid.
Seeking help from the Belgian and Kenyan embassies, she was able to return to Australia. She called the pastor of her church, as well as the BBC, and explained what had happened. The pastor helped her get home.
Meanwhile, Kalala was telling everyone that his wife had died in a tragic accident. On Feb. 22, 2015, as he said goodbye to neighbors who had come to comfort him, Rukundo approached him, in the flesh. Her husband put his hands on his head, horrified, and said “Is it my eyes? Is it a ghost?”
“Surprise!” Rukundo said. “I’m still alive!”
He touched her shoulder and found her real. Then he started screaming, wailing “I’m sorry for everything.” Rukundo got him to admit, on tape, that he had planned the hit.
Rukundo called the police, who arrested her husband. On Dec. 11, Kalala pleaded guilty and was sentenced for incitement to murder to nine years in prison.
Rukundo is left with eight children to care for. She said, “My situation, my past life? That is gone. I’m starting a new life now.”