Escape from Lubumbashi

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 desperate searching. Her incredible journey to escape the ruinous rule of Mobutu Sese Seko was filled with many moments of terror and despair, with 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.

Adolphine's experience is by no means unique. But the telling of it is important, as it puts a 'human face' on a 'humanitarian' disaster. Migration has been ongoing for centuries, but it can be said that it has in recent years become the theme of our time, even the next most critical international crisis after World War II. Adolphine affirms that it gave her relief "to voice out my life."

"I am a child of the African land. Refugees are like nomads who wander from one place to another. Perhaps if people knew more about us, how we struggle to survive, there would be more understanding in the world.