11-07-2025
Community gathers in Dube to honour Thobile Tshabalala after repatriation
The family and friends of the late Thobile Tshabalala gathered to honour her life in a candlelight service at her home in Dube.
This comes after residents successfully donated funds to help her family repatriate her body from the USA on July 8.
According to information provided, Tshabalala left South Africa in May last year for greener pastures and started working as an au pair through a programme.
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She was, however, let go by her agency after she fell ill in April.
It is alleged that due to her deteriorating mental health, Tshabalala reached out to a friend abroad who promised to assist her with money to fly back to SA. However, she collapsed at their meeting point in the airport.
Tshabalala's uncle, Kholekile Mnisi, said they are grateful to everyone who made donations to help bring her body home.
According to her former friend, who was in charge of the GoFundMe account that was used to gather the donations, a total of R328 000 was donated.
However, they did not receive all the funds as only R83 600 was received, Mnisi said.
'We see it fit to release these figures because we are liable to give everyone who donated feedback on how the money was used, but we are disappointed that the friend kept a portion of the money to herself without our permission.'
Mnisi described their current state of the family as 'going through an out-of-body experience that one could never prepare for'.
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'We are not coping. Especially her mother, she's going through the most.
'The last time she saw her daughter was when she was alive and healthy, and now she's only receiving her belongings in a black bag, which contains sneakers and a few items, as well as her empty purse and passport.
'It is gut-wrenching because Thobile had a lot of belongings in the US that her mother could not get, and no one can be held accountable for us not receiving them.'
Tshabalala will be spending her final night in her home and will be laid to rest tomorrow, July 12.
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