\u201cShe has not changed. Her face is still the same. She looks like me and her brothers. I am so happy. The fact that she remembered my name and her brother, Ngoni after so many years is very touching.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reunion, however, has also reopened painful questions about what happened to Tariro and who was responsible for her disappearance.<\/p>\n
Muchekadzose said Tariro vanished in 2013 while attending a cr\u00e8che operated at a church in Sakubva\u2019s OTS suburb, where the family rented a room.<\/p>\n
On the day she went missing, Muchekadzose had travelled into Mutare\u2019s city centre, where she earned a living by cooking and selling sadza.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I returned home, I was told that Tariro could not be found. We searched everywhere, but there was no trace of her,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The disappearance was immediately reported to the police, but investigators failed to uncover any leads that could explain the child\u2019s whereabouts.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
As the years passed without answers, suspicion initially fell on Tariro\u2019s father, Mr Tonderai Muhamba, who had crossed into Mozambique on the same day the child disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that time we had separated, and I suspected he had taken her. He strongly denied it and nothing was ever proved,\u201d Muchekadzose said.<\/p>\n
The circumstances surrounding Tariro\u2019s disappearance remained unresolved for years until her recent appearance in Mozambique and subsequent appeal for assistance.<\/p>\n
According to her mother, Tariro has now recounted some of the hardships she allegedly endured during the years she was away from her family.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe told me she was beaten almost every day and had run away twice. The second time, she fled because the people keeping her were threatening to kill her,\u201d Muchekadzose said.<\/p>\n
The account has added another painful dimension to a case that had remained a mystery for more than a decade, while the family now faces the challenge of ensuring that Tariro can safely return to Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
Despite the emotional reunion, Muchekadzose said bringing her daughter home has proved difficult because of the formal processes involved.<\/p>\n
She said Mozambican authorities advised that the official procedures could delay Tariro\u2019s return and that she might need to travel through Chipinge to collect her daughter in Espungabera.<\/p>\n
For the struggling mother, however, the cost of making the journey is currently beyond her means, leaving the family hoping for assistance to complete what has been an extraordinary 13-year journey from disappearance to reunions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 13 years of heartbreak, unanswered questions and fading hope, a mother living in Mutare, a city in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[60],"tags":[63,302,83,3109,243,3110,5223,122,261,264,106],"class_list":["post-388754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zimbabwe","tag-africa","tag-breaking-news","tag-business","tag-corruption","tag-entertainment","tag-government","tag-investigative-reporting","tag-nigeria","tag-politics","tag-sports","tag-zimbabwe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117133279019810028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}