Abducted siblings finally home after a traumatic year
The pair wept too. Many people were on hand to wipe away their tears
AFTER being abducted, starved and abused, both physically and emotionally, two young South Africans returned home to be reunited with their grandmother who had spent months searching for them.
The OR Tambo International’s arrivals section was all songs and tears when the two siblings trafficked to Malawi were returned to the country. Hugging the 20-year-old woman and 14-year-old boy tightly, the grandmother wept openly.
With Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini, she was part of a large welcoming party that sang and waved South African flags to greet the traumatised siblings. The pair wept too. Many were on hand to wipe away their tears.
“We’re very excited and happy,” said Mpumalanga MEC of Social development, Nomsa Mtsweni.
“We applaud gogo for not just sitting back and saying, ‘the kids are gone’. After they called her to say things are not okay, she knocked on every door. At first she reported the matter to a children’s home. Then she went to the councillor who reported the matter to the premier’s office who then quickly reported the matter to the department of social development,” she said.
Mtsweni added that the children’s home, Amazing Grace, in Komatipoort, should have gone to the police straight away. The police only found out about the kidnapping in October.
“They tried to do it themselves and we appreciate the work they did, but in future they should pass it forward to the authorities. Had it been reported sooner they probably would have been found sooner,” Mtsweni said.
Their ordeal has been a gruelling one.
Since their abduction in July last year, when a woman posing as a former teacher promised to take them to the Britain to further their studies, the two were smuggled through Mozambique and into Malawi where they were forced to do “heavy household chores”.
They were evicted often because the family that abducted them – a husband, his wife and four other children – would fail to pay rent. At some point, they slept at taxi rank for a week.
Speaking at a press conference following the reunion Dlamini said the siblings were traumatised and were receiving help from the department.
“Since being handed over to the South African government they have been kept at a transit home for children in Lilongwe.
“Social workers in Malawi reported that the siblings were subjected to physical and emotional abuse and had asked that we provide them with extensive counselling.
“The boy is reportedly very withdrawn and prefers to keep to himself. The twowill now be further assessed to ascertain their holistic wellbeing,” Dlamini said.
She promised that the department would “work hard” to ensure that such incidents were not repeated.
She also thanked the Malawi government for its assistance.