Zeituni Onyango, aunt of President Barack Obama, who was denied asylum in the U.S. and resorted to illegally living in the country for years, died on Tuesday, a victim of cancer.
Onyango, 61 years old, died on the early morning of Tuesday at a rehabilitation center in southern Boston, confirmed Gordon Landefeld, marketing manager of Margaret W. Wong and Associates, a firm based in Cleveland that represented her in an immigration process, according to Reuters.
According to the same source, Onyango, step-sister of Obama's late father, emigrated from Kenya to the U.S. in 2000, and in 2004 a judge denied her asylum, and resided illegally in the country for 6 years.
Finally, in 2010, a judge granted her asylum by considering that her relation to President Obama might put her life at risk in Kenya, according to Fox News.
So far, neither President Obama nor the White House have made any statements regarding Onyango's death, who had been ill since last January.
Margaret Wong, whose firm helped Obama's aunt get asylum in the US, said that Onyango died peacefully as she slept, and described her as "astute" and "friendly".
"She was an incredible woman, friendly, astute, intelligent, born in the wrong place at the wrong time. If she had been born in the US or in a more open, western society instead of being dragged down by tribes, lineage and being a woman in Kenya, she could have been all she wanted to be," said Wong in a release quoted by Fox.
Zeituni Onyango was born in 1952 in Kenya, had many children in the country and worked in the computer's department of Kenya Breweries, said Wong.
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