In 2015, Noela Rukundo, mother of eight children, had been living in Australia as a refugee for 11 years.
After moving to Australia in 2004, she met another African refugee, Balenga Kalala, and the two were eventually married. However, their union was not destined to be a happily ever after.
Noela returned home to Burundi in east Africa to attend the funeral of a family member. As she spent time in her hotel room, she called her husband, who recommended that she step outside to get some fresh air. That’s when things turned terrifying and Noela was kidnapped.
Balenga had hired men to kidnap and kill his wife, but that isn’t the end of her amazing story…
The kidnapping
Noela’s husband had paid to have her kidnapped and killed, but things didn’t unfold the way he had planned.
When a strange man brandishing a gun approached Noela outside of her hotel room in Burundi, he told her not to scream, and she had no choice but to go with him. She was forced into his car and they drove to a remote location.
Noela was disoriented and had no idea what was going on. When they reached their destination, her kidnappers took her inside and strapped her to a chair. Then, she overheard a conversation in which the men stated that they needed to call “the boss”. Noela had no idea at the time that “the boss” was actually her own husband.
The kidnappers began asking Noela questions:
“What did you do to this man?” the kidnappers asked her. “Why has this man asked us to kill you?”
She had no idea who was the “man” of which they spoke.
“Your husband!” the kidnappers revealed, yet Noela did not believe that her husband would do this to her. Her abductors then got Balenga on the phone, and over the speaker, she heard these horrible words: “Kill her.”
Balenga believed that the men he had hired would continue with the plan, but they didn’t. They held Noela for two more days, extorted additional money from her husband, and let her go.
“We don’t kill women and children,” they told her.
Noela quietly returned to Australia and hid from her husband until she had the chance to enact the perfect revenge. The day of her own funeral, she showed up and confronted her husband, who thought that he had seen a ghost. She assured him that he most certainly had not and that she was alive and well. Then she called the police.
Balenga originally denied everything to the police, but in another interesting twist, the kidnappers provided the information needed to convict him. Balenga pleaded guilty to incitement to murder and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
This may have been a horrifying situation with an unexpected happy ending, but the strange turn of events actually gave Noela strength. She has moved on and vows to live life to the fullest, like the strong woman that she is.
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