Exiled Activist’s Niece Afraid Of Returning To Zimbabwe

Noxolo Maphosa, a niece to political activist Josphat “Mzaca” Ngulube, is still stuck in South Africa after she fled the country last year following repeated harassment by suspected State agents.

Noxolo was allegedly abducted by four men in broad daylight while walking to a butchery near Pick n Pay (Hyper) in Bulawayo in August last year.

The men blindfolded her and drove to a house where they interrogated her about the whereabouts of his uncle Josphat ‘Mzaca’ Ngulube.

Following further harassment even after the family had relocated to a new suburb in Bulawayo, the 24-year-old mother of one skipped the border to South Africa where she has been in hiding since.

Noxolo who turned 24 this month, said she is scared to return to Zimbabwe and her “crime” is of being related to an activist. She said:

2021 is here and my baby and I are still stuck in exile after the state abducted me in 2020. Trying to start afresh in a foreign land is hard and traumatic. God will hear our prayers!

… We try and look normal in exile but we are hurting. Today I turn 24, already scared of my country where I am viewed as an enemy of the state. My only crime is related to an activist.

Ngulube fled Zimbabwe for South Africa after it emerged state security agents were looking for him in connection with the 31 July planned protests.

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