On Tuesday morning, popular sangoma, podcaster and DJ, Tumi “Gogo Skhotheni” Motsoeneng, took to her social media pages to announce her son’s death, Monde Junior Shange.
In the statement, she said her son died on Monday afternoon at the Busamed Modderfontein Private Hospital.
The son, whom she had with her estranged husband Monde Shange, had been in hospital since his birth two years ago.
He was born without an oesophagus (food pipe), underwent major surgeries and was using a machine to eat.In April last year, on the first episode of her show, The Venting Podcast, the reality TV star spoke about him, adding that all her children were born prematurely.
“All my kids, I have never reached nine months full pregnancy. It’s always emergency pregnancy – seven months, six months. All my kids stay in hospital [for] three months [or] four months. This one it’s a year now. It’s the first time I am talking about it, reason being there’s a history behind my womb. When I was raped, it got damaged somehow. I don’t know how,” said Motsoeneng, without getting into details of the rape incident.
In March, she wrote on her Instagram stories that God and the ancestors had disappointed her.
Tagging her son’s page, she wrote:
@mondejrshange you have been at that hospital ever since [birth]. You know all the nurses, doctors and cleaners. We are now planning your [second] birthday, and you are still there. God is testing the wrong woman, son. I will forever love Him. I will forever praise Him even when the situation doesn’t allow.
“God made a joke about me. Ancestors kept quiet. They saw me in pain daily, but they all did nothing. My faith is not shaken even by a snake. They know I would cross the ocean for them. God is even worse. He knows how much I love and fear Him, but what they [are] doing to my son, they are taking him away from his home. They are taking away his happiness and comfort and giving him to strangers’ hands. Even that won’t change me. I will praise Him through difficult times.”
Speaking to TimesLive at the time, she added that she was preparing for the worst.
I hardly talk about my son, but now I am tired. All I can say is this week I spoke to my heart; I need to prepare myself for the worst and all that will come. I am not wishing death upon my son, but preparations are better than nothing at all.
In December last year, the DJ tattooed her son’s face on her arm in his honour.
The family asked for privacy to mourn their son.
