MERCY Baguma was raised in Uganda and died in Scotland with only her baby son around her. That we know. But almost one week after news of her death shocked both countries and sparked renewed debate about the UK’s rigid immigration system, there remain more questions than answers about what happened to her.

The picture that’s emerging about the 34-year-old single mum – a former private schoolgirl with an MP father – is multi-layered and complex, and does not fit easily into any simplistic narratives about asylum seekers.

And as her friends and family come to terms with her loss, Scotland is still asking what lessons must be learned from her life and death, and what steps can be taken to ensure no other migrant mother shares her fate.

News of Mercy’s passing first emerged on Tuesday when the charity Positive Action in Housing (PAIH) released a statement containing information about a crowdfunder set up to cover her funeral expenses and provide for her young son.

Mercy, it said, had been discovered by police at her home on Saturday, August 22, four days after friends had last heard from her. She had health problems and her child, it said, was hungry and distressed – “starving” – and the family was said to have been living in “extreme poverty” after Mercy, an asylum seeker, lost her right to work in the UK.

The story immediately spread and though the crowdfunder established by a friend identified only as Bridget had aimed to raise £10,000, it has since garnered around £50,000 thanks to more than 3300 donors giving £5, £10, £75 at a time.

Many of those giving have commented on the heartbreaking loss to her child, who is now in the custody of his father – also an asylum seeker in Glasgow – having received urgent medical attention.

While it’s been reported that neighbours alerted police to the sound of the baby crying, two separate sources have told the Sunday National that it was the father who raised the alarm.

A source told the Sunday National that the 16-month-old boy, who was known to local Health and Social Care Services, is not thought to have suffered long-term health damage as a result of his ordeal. “Psychological, though, it’s hard to tell,” they said.

However, friends say he was well-cared-for by his mother, who attended a regular parent-and-toddler group run by the Refugee Survival Trust, which supports asylum seekers in Glasgow. Mercy has been praised as an “amazing mother” who “always put her family first, especially her son”.

From what we’ve been able to establish, Mercy’s own childhood was very different from the one that her son was growing into.

One of 14 children, she was the daughter of a politician, former MP Abdu Balingilira Nakendo, and was educated at a private school which offers boarding.

An older sister practices as a human rights lawyer in Kampala, a brother is running for office there. The family resides in the suburbs of the Ugandan capital, while she lived in a housing association flat in Glasgow’s Govan district, close to to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in a country where she’d resided for 14 years.

Mercy’s family haven’t said how she came to be in Scotland, but the Guardian reported that she’d come here to study in Paisley, Renfrewshire.

She’d had temporary leave to remain in the UK, but it’s not known when this was issued or what period it covered. She’d worked at African eaterie Calabash in Glasgow city centre but was latterly unable to work after her permissions expired and described herself as an asylum seeker when she approached PAIH as she was “not getting any financial support”. “I’m just asking if you have any grants that I can apply for,” she said.

Mercy had also received food aid from African Challenge Scotland and recorded a video thanking them for their delivery of mackerel, beef, yams, milk and 10kg of rice on August 6. “She was very grateful, she was very happy, very smiley, very delighted to receive our food parcel,” said founder Ronier Deumeni, who made that delivery. “There was no sense that anything was wrong.”

The National:

EARLIER in the week, Mercy’s family members posted several social media messages asking people not to “judge” her and stating that “every foreigner [out of their own country] has their own story and journey with immigration”.

Speaking to Mail Online on Friday, her brother Eric Muhangi said the family is “not poor” and “if she needed something, all she had to do was ask”.

“She went to a good school that not all Ugandans can afford,” he went on. “She had everything she needed. We are shocked. Why did she not ask us for help?”

But it’s understood that Mercy, also known as Masitula Baguma Nakendo, was experiencing hardship and had received meals from friends. She was also, the Sunday National has been told, in receipt of support for her child. However, it’s not known what form this took.

Under Home Office rules, those whose asylum claim is rejected can be cut off from all forms of funding under the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) rule. But the rules do permit for payments to continue if fresh evidence is presented, or when a claimant has dependents under the age of 18.

For those who are eligible for support, payments are small – around £37 per week for a single adult.

Danny Boyle of equalities charity Bemis said the NRPF policy is “an example of institutional racial discrimination” in a “discriminatory immigration system”. Appearing on BBC Radio Scotland, he called on the Scottish Government to “think creatively” and use the limited powers over welfare passed to the Scottish Parliament in 2016 and to “use the powers of Scotland to protect all the people of Scotland, regardless of their immigration status”.

Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said that’s not possible as immigration and the NRPF rule are reserved and her government has been making grants to the third sector in order to ensure provision for those in need. “If you’ve got no recourse to public funds that means that the state can’t intervene and help,” she said. “It’s regrettable, I’m not suggesting that I’m content with this approach.”

She said the rules “need to change” and that though her team will “continue to plead, to meet, to write to engage ... very little changes”.

The Home Office, which this week resumed removal flights, defended the rules, but Traci Kirkland of the Govan Community Project – which has declined to confirm whether or not it worked with Mercy – said it has given out 500 Scottish Government-funded shopping vouchers to struggling households this month. “We couldn’t meet all the demand that was there,” she said.

Support for Mercy’s crowdfunder is, she said, “absolute proof that people in Scotland and Glasgow don’t share the views of the Home Office”. “Everything’s broken but they don’t seem to be willing to engage with agencies to fix it,” she added.

The National:

Mercy’s death comes after the Park Inn hotel attack, in which an asylum seeker was shot dead after committing a knife attack that sent six other people to hospital. And that happened weeks after another man, Syrian Adnan Elbi, died in another hotel used by Home Office contractor Mears.

The African and asylum-seeking communities in Glasgow were already hurting, Deumeni said, and this latest loss has increased anxiety for families. “Today we are talking about Mercy,” he said, “tomorrow it could be someone else.”

Mercy Baguma was due to be buried at her home town of Bugiri, a three-hour drive east of Kampala, the Ugandan capital. However, it was called off because of media interest and until they had more details of the circumstances of her death in Glasgow.

The post-mortem has not yet taken place, but will only provide limited information about how this loving mother, friend and sister died, not about how she lived.

“Sometimes someone can live close to you and you don’t have any idea about them,” Deumeni said. “Talk to your neighbours.”