With tears streaming down her face, a grief-stricken 62-year-old mother spoke this week of her heartbreak after she discovered her daughter had been jailed for 19 years in Mozambique for drug smuggling.
The mother spoke to The Herald on condition of anonymity for fear of being marginalised in her community and also at her church.
Cuddling her eight-month-old grandson – who was only three months old when his mother, 33, was arrested in Maputo for drug possession – at her KwaMagxaki home, the woman wept uncontrollably as she told of the anguish surrounding her daughter’s arrest.
“I was just sick when I heard. My daughter will be in custody for a very long time.
“My husband and I will probably be dead by the time she gets out.
“It breaks my heart. It’s worse for my husband, who has a heart condition.
“Sometimes she phones and informs me that she is hungry and that it’s cold inside the prison,” she said.
“I cannot send her money because I have to feed the little one.”
The woman was on her way from Ghana to Johannesburg earlier in May.
She stopped off in Mozambique on May 12 to take a connecting flight to SA when she was arrested in Maputo.
At the time, the family approached former Port Elizabeth attorney Mpumelelo “Bond” Nyoka, who flew to Pretoria on May 23 to meet officials from the department of international relations.
In an e-mail to Nyoka in June, assistant director for the consular geographical desk Ida Coetzee said the SA High Commission had contacted prison officials in Maputo who confirmed that the woman was in detention.
Nyoka played a pivotal role in the release of Vanessa Goosen, a former Miss SA finalist who was arrested at Bangkok Airport in 1994 with 2.7kg of heroin in her possession. She was released in 2010.
On Monday, Nyoka said the family was still in shock after the woman was sentenced.
“We are absolutely distraught by this latest development,” he said.
“I just never expected that after two court appearances, she could be sentenced to such a lengthy jail term.
“It was so sudden. We really do not know what happened.
“We are really shocked at the excessive speed it was dealt with. We also do not know the quantity of drugs involved,” he said.
The family would try to figure out a way to help the jailed mother, Nyoka said.
The 62-year-old said a family friend told her about the sentencing on October 23.
She said not many people knew about her daughter’s sentence because she feared being judged by friends.
“I have nobody to share the pain. When I try share it with people, I fear they will make a mockery of all this. What has my daughter done to deserve this? It is very painful.”
She said her daughter’s child was oblivious to his mother’s fate.
“My daughter hoped to get a lenient sentence. She was shocked with the 19-year jail term. But she has since accepted it.”
She said the family hoped to argue for a lesser sentence and possibly get her daughter transferred to an SA prison.
She said her neighbours and friends never asked about her daughter’s whereabouts.
“But sometimes I get calls from people asking when my daughter would come and pay her accounts.
“I have to come up with an excuse, like she is out of town and do not know when she will be back,” she said.
International relations spokesperson Ndivhuwo wa ha Mabaya did not respond to questions.