Escape from Lubumbashi: A Refugee’s Journey on Foot to Reunite Her Family (Routledge/UNISA Press Series) - Softcover

Neethling, Estelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 103256749X ISBN 13: 9781032567495

Publisher: Routledge, 2025

Synopsis

This is the true story of Adolphine, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was twenty-two when she had to flee her home in the war-ravaged DRC in 1996. She walked thousands of kilometres across Southern Africa to be reunited with her husband Sepano in Cape Town after two years of a desperate search. Her incredible journey to escape the ruinous rule of Mobutu Sese Seko was filled with many moments of terror and despair, every country having its own share of xenophobia. She told the writer – the retired national tracing coordinator of the International Red Cross’s Restoring of Family Links programme in South Africa – “I felt as if the earth had teeth, I felt its bite when I was fleeing through Africa…”.

Her story is a powerful intimate account of belonging and the anguish of displacement, of settling and being uprooted and how a deeply troubled household navigates this across time and space. Her story strongly highlights the vulnerability of women and children in times of war and unrest.

Print editions not for sale in Sub Saharan Africa.

About this title

About the Author

Estelle Neethling met Adolphine while working for the South African Red Cross Society as national tracing coordinator (Restoring of Family Links Programme, International Committee of the Red Cross). This book done over nine years was life-changing mainly in that Neethling became familiar with the enormous challenges faced by displaced people. Neethling felt the strong need to tell Adolphine's story after having known her for many years.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 103256749X
• ISBN 13: 9781032567495
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 136