Sisters, Soldiers and a Shadow War: Inside the Hawks’ Probe Into the Zuma Family Clash

The Hawks’ Crimes Against the State unit is investigating allegations that Zuma family members were involved in recruiting 17 South African men for the Russia-Ukraine war (image source)

The story began as a whisper a rumour that young South African men had vanished into the fog of the Russia-Ukraine battlefield. Then, like many political scandals in South Africa, it widened into a family saga with national-security implications. Now it sits squarely on the desk of the Hawks’ Crimes Against the State (CATS) unit, where investigators are combing through travel records, phone logs, voice notes and testimonies that stretch from Johannesburg’s townships to the icy borderlands of eastern Ukraine. At the heart of the unfolding drama are two sisters: Nkosazana Bonganini Zuma-Mncube and Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla daughters of former president Jacob Zuma. What began as internal family distress has hardened into a criminal complaint, formalised in an inquiry docket that police confirmed has now been escalated to the country’s elite investigative wing.

Zuma-Mncube alleges that her sister and two unnamed individuals played a role in recruiting 17 South African men, many from vulnerable communities, who were allegedly transported to Russia and later deployed to the front lines of the Ukraine conflict. South African families, some speaking through tears, claim their sons thought they were leaving home for security jobs, construction work or training programmes not live combat. The allegations hit a raw national nerve: the spectre of trafficking-like recruitment, the secrecy of mercenary corridors, and the global conflict that unexpectedly reached deep into South African households. A Hawks source, speaking with the guarded calm of someone very aware of geopolitical sensitivities, told reporters, “We are treating this with the seriousness it deserves and following all leads.”

Behind that restrained sentence lies a labyrinth of investigative threads. The Hawks must now piece together flight paths, visa arrangements, WhatsApp communications, recruitment contracts (if any exist), and potential financial flows that could indicate organised networks. They will also coordinate with foreign authorities a challenge when the alleged events intersect with one of the world’s most contested war zones.

For families, the tragedy feels brutally personal. Mothers from Mpumalanga and Gauteng have described receiving hurried voice notes, sometimes from unfamiliar numbers, hinting at fear, regret or captivity. Community leaders have pleaded for consular intervention, and civil-society organisations are urging the state to adopt stronger safeguards to prevent recruitment of South Africans into foreign conflicts. The Hawks’ CATS division, typically focused on espionage, terrorism and high-stakes national-security breaches, is now operating in a hybrid space, part criminal investigation, part humanitarian mission, part geopolitical navigation.

What investigators ultimately uncover may have consequences far beyond the Zuma household. If charges of human trafficking or contraventions of the Foreign Military Assistance Act are pursued, they could reshape South Africa’s legal approach to citizen involvement in overseas conflicts. For now, the unanswered questions hang heavy, who organised the journey? What promises were made? Who funded the travel? And most importantly can the 17 men be brought home alive? South Africa waits for clarity. The Hawks, for now, search through shadows.