SA Woman Travels To Zimbabwe To Join Husband, Left Stranded After In-laws Turn Her Away

A South African woman who travelled to Zimbabwe to join her husband, who had returned home after anti-immigrant unrest, was reportedly left stranded at a Bulawayo transit centre after his family refused to take her in.

Charlotte Masemola, 34, from Mpumalanga, arrived in Zimbabwe on Tuesday with her three children, aged seven, six and two, after her husband asked her to join him. He had returned to Zimbabwe in May.

Masemola is among scores of people staying at the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa in Bulawayo’s Njube suburb, which has been serving as a temporary reception and transit centre for Zimbabweans returning from South Africa because of ongoing anti-immigrant protests.

She said she travelled to Zimbabwe after her husband assured her it was safe to do so.

“My husband returned to Zimbabwe around May after fleeing the unrest. I was left alone with the children in South Africa, and they kept asking about their father,” said Masemola.

“We spoke, and he told me it was okay for me to come, so I took advantage of the buses that were repatriating people because I had no money for transport.”

Masemola said she travelled using her South African ID because she does not have a passport.

Holding a piece of paper with her husband’s phone number on it, she said she told officials at every border post that she was a South African citizen.

She said she had been receiving South African child support grants before she left the country.

However, after arriving in Zimbabwe, she said her husband told her that his sisters, who they had planned to stay with, no longer wanted to accommodate her.

“He said he has been busy at work, and that is why he hasn’t come. I don’t even know where he works,” said Masemola.

“He only sent his brother, whom I knew from South Africa, to visit us here. He is the one who explained what was happening because I no longer have my phone.”

Masemola said her mother had supported her decision to move to Zimbabwe.

She said she had hoped to settle in Zimbabwe with her husband while making occasional trips to South Africa to see her mother and her 15-year-old child, who remained there.

Contacted by CITE, Masemola’s husband, who declined to be named, confirmed that he intended to collect his wife from the transit centre.

“The challenge is that my family did not want to accept her. I have since asked my friends to help me look for a place for us to stay,” he said.

He said he will relocate his wife and children to his rural home in Gwanda if he failed to find accommodation in Bulawayo.