A pregnant woman in Louisville, Kentucky was found fatally shot in front of her husband and 13-month-old child on Sunday. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports Nyota Bawili and her husband had just moved to the area from Florida after they fled the Democratic Republic of The Congo to escape threats of violence and war.
1-9-2022–Family says pregnant mother of 7, unborn baby killed by gunfire https://t.co/2ZET6IoAPU
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#StopKillingBlackGirlsNyota Bawili, 39 pic.twitter.com/hLpcuKC1c9
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A bullet was shot through her home early on Sunday morning while she was watching TV with her husband and toddler. Four of their other children were also in the home at the time of the shooting. The 39-year-old mother of seven was also pregnant with the couple’s eighth child at the time. WDRB reports Bawili was pronounced dead on the scene when first responders arrived.
“To see my wife dead in front of me and in front of our 13-month-old child — that is the most devastating thing I’ve experienced in life,” her husband Patrick Pili Pili said through their family friend Rolend Butsitsi who interpreted the conversation.
His interpreter expressed that the father was going through a great amount of grief over the sudden loss of his wife saying that “she was not only his wife. She was his best friend.”
“Whoever did this, wherever they are, it really left me with a big scar and a big task. He or she took my best friend away and as a widow of seven kids, with the last being a 13-month-old, I don’t know where to start or to finish,” Bawili’s husband said. “Why did you do this?”