A friend of dreadlock drug smuggler Nolubabalo Nobanda is reportedly stranded in Thailand and has not been able to contact her family back in South Africa.
South African embassy staff in Bangkok were alerted Dec.17 to the plight of Sulezi Rwanqa, 25, who made desperate phone calls to her family this week saying she needed help, Times Live reported.
Nolubabalo Nobanda, 23, was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on Monday after getting off a Qatar Airways flight from São Paulo, Brazil. Police discovered 1.5kg of cocaine in her hair. Now it has emerged that her close friend may have been on the same flight or had planned to meet her in Bangkok.
Linda Mkhontwana said her sister, Rwanqa, phoned her on Monday.
In a development which shocked her parents, Rwanqa said she was in Thailand and had seen television footage of Nobanda being arrested and she was afraid.
“She said until the arrest, they had regular telephone contact,” said Mkhontwana.
Rwanqa’s family revealed that she had not been to see them in Grahamstown for a month.
Department of International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said yesterday that Rwanqa’s family had asked for help.
“The family has furnished us with all her details, which we have forwarded to our embassy in Thailand. As far as I know, she’s not missing. Our embassy is assisting her family [in locating her].
“We were not aware of her when Nolubabalo Nobanda was arrested,” Monyela said.
Rwanqa’s mother, Noskuta Rwanqa, 59, speaking from her homestead in Tantyi, was distraught over the whereabouts of her daughter.
“She must be afraid where she is. I, on the other hand, am worrying about whether she’s eating and where she’s sleeping, what she’s doing.”
She said she first heard about her daughter’s “overseas trip” from Nobanda’s mother, Honjiswa Mbewu, after the arrest on Monday.
“She asked me where Sulezi was. She said Nolubabalo had been arrested and had been given a phone by the police to make the call [home]. She apparently said she was sorry and that my child was on the way back and would explain.”
Mbewu this week described her daughter as a churchgoing person who had set up her own catering business. The family had last seen her on November 25 after a function – which she had catered for – with Rwanqa.
Friends and family described her as a “people pleaser” who would “take the shirt off her back” for someone in need of help.
Two close friends said they knew she had gone to Brazil, but were not aware of the purpose of the trip.
Nobanda, who is being held in Bangkok’s infamous Klong Prem Prison, reportedly showed a friend an SMS reflecting an amount of R20000 had been deposited into her account shortly before she flew to Brazil.
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