Tuesday 16 June 2015

IDI AMIN'S FAVOURITE WIDOW DIES OF CANCER.


Idi Amin's widow who lived a life of obscurity running a North London hair salon for 30 years after the dictator's exile has died following a battle with cancer.

Sarah Kyolaba was the last surviving wife of the former Ugandan leader before she died last week at London's Royal Free Hospital, it has been reported.

The 59-year-old arrived in Britain more than three decades ago - having followed her husband into exile in Saudi Arabia - and later worked at a salon in Tottenham.


Mrs Amin was once known as 'Suicide Sarah' because she was a go-go dancer for the Ugandan army's Revolutionary Suicide Mechanised Regiment Band.

She married the dictator after he spotted her performing at the age of 19. The pair were later married in a lavish £2million ceremony in the country's capital Kampala. She was said to be his 'favourite wife' and went by the title Lady Sarah Kyolaba Idi Amin.

Friends have paid tribute to her 'honesty and her humility' while others remembered how she enjoyed visiting her local bar in Seven Sisters, the Independent reports. 

President Amin, who reportedly fathered 43 children, was forced from Uganda in 1979, fled to Libya, then Iraq and finally Saudi Arabia, where he was allowed to settle provided he stayed out of politics.

A one-time heavyweight boxing champion and soldier in the British colonial army, Amin seized power on January 25, 1971, overthrowing President Milton Obote while Obote was abroad.


Human rights groups say hundreds of thousands of people were killed during Amin's 1971-1979 rule over Uganda.

He died from kidney failure in 2003. 


In an interview after his death, his widow, who worked as a lingerie model in Germany before moving to Britain with the third of her four children, said the dictator was a 'true African hero', the Independent reports.

She is quoted as saying at the time: 'He was just a normal person, not a monster. He was a jolly person, very entertaining and kind.


'I learned a lot of things from him, not because I was married to him but as a growing woman… things like leadership, self-confidence and initiative.'

The Independent reports that she described herself as the 'former First Lady of Uganda' on her Facebook page, which featured a picture of her sitting beside the dictator.









1 comment:

  1. No way Idi Amin was a not good, he killed my four of elder brothers. And destroyed our home.

    ReplyDelete