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Photo Credit: On File

A young German woman used Facebook to try find her late fathers family, he fled South Africa during Apartheid and lived in exile until he sadly passed away.

 

Melinda was just 5 years old when her father, Alpheus Mpikeleli Kubeka passed away while living in exile in Germany. Her father had fled South Africa during apartheid and had planned to return to South Africa once things had gotten better.

Sadly he passed away before he was able to reunite with his South African family. Melinda who is now 20 decided to create a Facebook page in his memory and hopefully be able to reconnect with her fathers family. She posted old photo’s of him in the hopes that people would recognise him.

1977 he fled from South Africa to Germany because of the apartheid.
Now he left 6 children here in Germany. Me and my older siblings.
We unfortunately have no contact to our family in South Africa. We don’t even know any of them. And they don’t even know that their son or brother died in Germany.
I’m so sad that they also don’t know that we exist.
It’s so hard for me to live with a half of my heart because the other half is somewhere out there in South Africa.
I know that my dad has 4 younger brothers.
And they lived in Johannesburg.
The name of his mother is Miriam and the name of his father is Simon.
I don’t know a lot about the family, because I was 5 years when he died and he didn’t tell us a lot infos because his plan was to go back to South Africa when things get better.

The story quickly picked up momentum and just two weeks after she created the page her fathers brother reached out and confirmed she still has a big family in South Africa.

A few days ago I finally found my dad’s brother, my uncle Banele Kubeka!
He’s the one on the first picture, on the second one there is the passport of my dad, which he left home in South Africa before he went to exile.
I can’t describe how happy and thankful I am that I finally can get to know my family.
Words can’t describe the feeling that I had when I got the first call from him.
I’ve cried so much after that and couldn’t believe it.
Now we do everything that we all can meet one day.

This is a very happy ending, both sides of the family reunited by using social media.

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Sources: Facebook
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About the Author

Tyler Leigh Vivier is a writer for Good Things Guy.

Her passion is to spread good news across South Africa with a big focus on environmental issues, animal welfare and social upliftment. Outside of Good Things Guy, she is an avid reader and lover of tea.

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