A Maryland mother claimed she was attacked, drugged and kidnapped during her vacation at an African resort, before she fought back and escaped her captor.
Jameka Ivy, 31, jetted off to the North African nation of Tunisia for a week-long trip with her best friend, Queen, staying at the Penthouse Suites Hotel, where she was allegedly assaulted by an unknown man on Sept. 20.
The friends had returned to the resort in the capital city of Tunis after a night out at the club when Ivy headed downstairs to the hotel’s lobby as she looked for tissues and encountered a random man, she told Fox 5 DC.
“I woke up in a situation I never imagined I’d face, and to this day I am still processing the trauma and working to gather the facts of what happened,” Ivy wrote on GoFundMe.
Ivy said she doesn’t remember much from the lobby assault, claiming she was “drugged and kidnapped.”
“I don’t even know what happened to me,” Meka told the outlet. “Just know I was fighting for my life at a grown ass man. I was fighting for my life.”
“The next thing I remember, I’m in the back of a car, and I just start opening doors, I start panicking,” she recalled to the outlet.
Ivy says an unidentified male driver grabbed her from fleeing, covered her mouth with his hand and punched her to smother the distressed woman’s cries for help.
“It’s a grown man. He’s punching me in my face or my forehead and both of my eyes,” Ivy said. “So I’m like, I just keep thinking I got to get back home to my kids.”
Queen was left back at the hotel and pleaded with the staff to help save her friend, but wasn’t given any assistance.
Hotel employees claimed Ivy had “made a friend” and left the resort, which left Queen confused due to the language barrier between her pal and the locals.
“And I’m like, ‘How can she make a friend? She doesn’t speak these languages,” Queen told Fox 5 DC, upset she didn’t get help from anyone.
“I have videos, they’re like walking away. They’re like, ‘This didn’t happen here. We don’t know what you’re talking about.’”
Ivy miraculously escaped her abductor and managed to get back to the hotel.
She suffered facial injuries, including several scratches and two black eyes, during the attack.
She also left the African country with bruises and wounds to her legs, according to photos she shared on GoFundMe.
“To this day I am still processing the trauma and working to gather the facts of what happened,” she wrote on the fundraiser aimed at collecting $5,000 for therapy, legal expenses and travel accommodations for future litigation.
“No one should face this alone. Your help will allow me to access the legal resources and mental health care I need so I can heal and pursue accountability,” she wrote.
Ivy reported the attack to the US Embassy in Tunis and had met with State Department officials and local police about the alleged assault.
“Since that night, I’ve been doing everything I can to stay safe and to start the long process of recovery. I have reported the incident to local authorities and I am pursuing legal action, but I need help covering the costs of that process as well as the immediate supports I require to heal,” Ivy said.
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