The Obama family suffered a loss yesterday. Barack Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, who fought deportation from the US, passed away at age 61. According to sources, she was being treated for cancer and respiratory problems at a Boston rehabilitation center at the time of her death.
Onyango, the half-sister of the president’s late father, made headlines during Obama’s 2008 election due to her immigrant status. She moved to the U.S from Kenya in 2000 and stayed in the US illegally for years.
Attorney Margaret Wong, who represented Onyango during her imagination case and announced the news of her passing, described her client as an “awesome, funny, shrewd, smart lady born at the wrong place at the wrong time. If she was only born in America or born in more Western open society instead of being bogged down by tribes, lineage and being a woman in Kenya, she could have been anything she wanted to be. After her vilification by the press during the President’s campaign, she fought hard for her legal status.” Wong said in a statement
She went on to say that Ms. Onyango become ill in January and died in her sleep. President Obama is yet to comment on the sad news, but he did speak about his love for Auntie Zeituni in his 1995 memoir “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” She is referred to as “Aunti Zeituni”
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