SA mother loses hope of finding teen daughter who ‘crossed into Zimbabwe’; disappearance linked to Zimbabwean pastor

By Sunday World

SOUTH AFRICA: Shokie Moeng could barely hold back tears as she sat in her home at Shatale township, near Bushbuckridge, in Mpumalanga to tell the story of her missing daughter.

“My daughter is out there, and I don’t know where to turn to anymore,” she said, her voice trembling. “It’s been over a month, and the silence is killing me.”

Moeng’s daughter, Masego Sharney Idah Madipane, disappeared on August 6. The 15-year-old was last seen wearing her school uniform – a blue jacket, white shirt, black trousers, and black shoes – before she allegedly crossed into Zimbabwe with a 17-year-old boy.

The family’s search for her has been agonising, and Moeng, 38, has now lost faith in the police.

“I’ve been pleading with the local police to do something, to get Interpol involved,” Moeng said, wiping tears from her face. “But they keep telling me it’s too complicated. Too complicated?”

Masego’s disappearance was first reported as a missing person case, but after witnesses claimed to have seen her and the boy at the Musina border in Limpopo, the case was reclassified as abduction. Taxi drivers who operate between Mpumalanga and Limpopo told the family they saw the teenagers together.

A few days later, Masego contacted her mother via WhatsApp, telling her she was in Zimbabwe and that she would return soon. But her phone has since gone silent.

“I haven’t heard from her again,” Moeng told Sunday World, her eyes welling up. “I’m dying inside, not knowing where she is or whether she’s safe.”

The genesis of Masego’s disappearance seems to have been when she fell ill with undiagnosed symptoms and the family eventually sought help from a Zimbabwean pastor.

“She was sick, but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her,” Moeng explained. Desperate for answers, the family turned to spiritual help.

“We tried everything – even local spiritual healers – but nothing worked.”

Then a neighbour introduced them to the Zimbabwean pastor. The pastor and his wife prayed for Masego, and she seemed to be getting better.

“We were just so happy to see her better, but I never expected this would lead to her disappearance,” Moeng says. “She started spending more time at the pastor’s house for prayers. I thought it was just for her healing.”

But when Masego disappeared, the pastor and his wife also vanished.

“Why are they hiding? Why haven’t the police interrogated them?” Moeng asked.

Mpumalanga police spokesperson Captain Donald Mdhluli confirmed they were investigating. “Our information is that the girl left for school on the 6th of August, and … that the school transport driver told her [mother] the girl had returned home in the morning, saying she was feeling unwell.”

Mdhluli added that once it was discovered that Masego was last seen at the Musina border the case was reopened as an abduction. However, details of the investigation have been scant, leaving Moeng frustrated.

“When I ask the police for updates, it’s like I’m bothering them,” she said. “They keep telling me they’re working on it, but I don’t see anything happening. It’s like my daughter’s life doesn’t matter.”

Sergeant Merilyne Mmonwa of Bushbuckridge declined to provide specifics of the investigation. “The police are following every lead that may assist in finding the girl,” she said.

But  the family has not given up. Relatives in Gauteng recently put up posters of Masego with contact details for the police and Missing Children South Africa.

But for Moeng, the pain is unbearable, and the perceived inaction of the authorities leaves her frustrated.

“If this were a politician’s child, they would have brought her back by now,” she lamented.