Kenyan Woman Dies in Hospital After Assault and Rape in Albania

A 22-year-old Kenyan woman who was brutally assaulted and raped in Albania last year has died.

Joy Achieng Aoko passed away on Monday while undergoing treatment at Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital, her mother Ruth Abong’o confirmed.

“We have lost my daughter. I only hope that as a family, we shall get justice,” Abong’o told Nation.

Her death comes barely three weeks after the government medically evacuated her from the European nation, where she had been admitted for months in critical condition.

A medical report from Spitali Universitar 1 Traumes in Tirana, where she was hospitalized, showed she suffered several injuries, including fractures, and internal bleeding.

Joy, who had moved to Albania in February last year to work as a croupier in a casino, was brutally attacked by unknown people while at her place of work in Tirana in August 2022.

Prior to the attack, Abong’o said her daughter complained that she was being stalked by a man only identified as a casino driver and that she felt threatened and unsafe.

“She told me that a driver was following her and that he wanted to have a romantic relationship with her, but she didn’t want him," she explained.

The family is seeking justice and is accusing police of not doing enough to uncover what happened.

“Up to now there is no new information. They only told me they are doing investigations and that when they need me they will call me. But since August, they have never reached out,” the mother said.

“The first hospital that [she] was rushed to has not released the medical report up to now. I want to see what my daughter was diagnosed with upon arrival in that hospital."