Emalahleni — For the Miya siblings, Mpumelelo (28) and her younger brother Skhumbuzo (24), who live in extension 11 from Ezinambeni, life has become a struggle far beyond putting food on the table. Each day is a battle to break free from an addiction from nyaope.
Their journey into this darkness began after their mother passed away in 2018 and their father followed in 2022. What began as teenage experiments turned into a long and merciless battle with drugs, each hit pulling them further from the life they once imagined.
Skhumbuzo did not start by smoking, but was a nyaope dealer at 18. “I would get a big batch to sell, and I remember thinking, ‘If I take a few, I can control it.’ I was wrong,” he says, his voice breaking.
In 2019, Mpumi’s mental health worsened after giving birth to her daughter whose father rejected. To cope with the pain, she sought an escape to nyaope. “I don’t want my daughter to be ashamed of me,” she says. “She’s growing up, and I’m missing important moments in her life.”
Attempts to escape the grip of drugs have been met with betrayal. After losing their father, the siblings were sent to Pretoria for rehab, but instead ended up under the care of a man who falsely claimed to own a rehabilitation centre. This man, they recount, deepened their addiction as he kept buying them drugs for a period of two months.
Now, worn down by relatives who have abandoned them and neighbours who judge them in whispers, Mpumelelo and Skhumbuzo are making a public plea. “Help us get clean. Help us start again.”
The Kakarambha Foundation, which brings awareness about drugs and the negative impact it has on communities, has stepped in to support them with clothes and connected them to an official from the Department of Social Development.
The siblings say the foundation advised them to get checked for any underlying illnesses so that it would be easier to process them when they get to a rehabilitation centre. “Addiction has stolen enough from us,” Skhumbuzo says. “We just want our lives back.”
However, the DSD official, they say, told them she is too busy with other clients and won’t be of help to them at the moment.
