From the frontline to detention

Monika Ndina Sheya was 21 when she crossed into exile in 1974, slipping through a hole dug beneath the border fence at Ondjiva and into Angola with a small group of nurses, students and young men.

Like many of her generation, she believed she was answering a call to liberation. What followed, she says, was a descent from discipline and sacrifice into starvation, fear and silence – ending on a river island in Zambia where people were shot, starved and erased.

Her journey through exile took her across multiple camps – Karabo, Shatotwa, Senanga and finally Mboroma – tracing not only the brutality she says she witnessed, but also her own role as a nurse, trainer and frontline combatant before becoming a detainee.



Crossing into exile

After arriving in Angola, Sheya recalls being housed briefly in a school hall before groups were moved eastwards, first towards Zaire and then Zambia. Thousands travelled on foot for days, including pregnant women and children.

“We were thirsty. We were tired,” she recalls. “We sold our clothes for boiled maize so we could eat.”

From the Angola–Zaire border, the group crossed desert terrain. At the Zaire–Zambia border, the railway line ended. From there, they walked about 100 kilometres through bush and open land before crossing rivers by canoe.

“You could hear the hippos breathing at night,” she says.

Once inside Zambia, they were taken to Karabo, a Swapo camp. There, recruits were ordered to surrender all their money, supposedly to be exchanged into local currency. Soon after, they were moved again – this time to Shatotwa.



Training in hardship

Shatotwa, she says, was a remote forest camp with little infrastructure.

“There was nothing,” she recalls. “Just a forest, one green tent for the leaders and bags of maize meal.”

Military training began almost immediately. Recruits marched long distances, dismantled and reassembled weapons, and endured strict discipline. Food was scarce.

“We were fed maize meal in water. No salt. No sugar,” she says.

Despite the conditions, Sheya advanced quickly. After three months, she became a trainer, instructing new arrivals in weapons maintenance. She also worked in the camp clinic, dispensing medication supplied from abroad.

She was later selected for specialised training in Kongwa, Tanzania, where conditions improved.

“It was hard work, but we were well fed,” she says.



At the frontline

After about a year, Sheya was sent back to Zambia. One day, she was abruptly ordered to pack her military and first-aid bags.

“I didn’t ask where I was going,” she says. “You don’t ask questions.”

She and another woman were transported by armoured truck to a frontline position near the river at Katima Mulilo. Living in a small camouflage tent without fires or light, they survived on rations.

“I was one of the first two women at the Katima Mulilo frontline,” she says.

She remained there for nearly nine months and took part in three engagements against South African forces, tending to wounded soldiers under fire. One young man, she recalls, shot himself. She handled his body until it was removed.

At night, danger came from all sides.

“You could hear breathing outside your ribs while you slept,” she says.



Withdrawal and disarmament

When Swapo’s founding president visited the frontline by helicopter, Sheya asked why women had to be deployed there.

“If I die here, there are children who will never be born,” she says.

She says the question went unanswered.

Soon after, ammunition ran out. Fighters survived by hiding and retreating through the bush. The unit was eventually withdrawn to Senanga, an island base plagued by mosquitoes and malaria. Medication was scarce.

Later, they were transferred to a central base near Shatotwa and disarmed.

“All the guns were taken away,” she says. “We became nobody.”



Detention at Mboroma

While fetching medication one day, Sheya narrowly escaped a South African bombing. That night, the camp was evacuated. She was told they were going to Lusaka.

They were not.

The journey ended at Mboroma, an isolated island camp guarded by Zambian soldiers.

“I later learned it had been used as a detention camp,” she says. “A concentration camp.”

By the time she arrived, she estimates nearly 1 850 people were detained there.



Killings and starvation

On 5 August 1976, gunfire erupted. She remembers hiding near the latrine and watching as men were executed.

“All of them were shot in the head,” she says.

At least 15 people were seriously injured. She was ordered to help collect the wounded. Later, she says, a Zambian commander told detainees the killings had been ordered.

Starvation was already widespread.

“We were deliberately starved,” she says. “People dropped dead in the queue.”



Smuggling the truth

While transporting bodies under guard, a young soldier gave her two postage stamps. She used them to smuggle a letter to the outside world, hiding it in her sanitary pads.

“I know it reached the BBC,” she says.

When camp authorities demanded to know who had leaked the information, Sheya admitted responsibility.

“I was beaten almost to death,” she says.

Eventually, detainees were given a choice: return to Swapo structures or leave as refugees under the United Nations. About 200, including Sheya, chose refugee status.



A call for truth

Nearly 50 years on, Sheya says she is not seeking revenge, only truth and recognition.

“What happened to the bodies I carried?” she asks.

“We were comrades,” she says. “We were not spies. And we deserve the truth.”