Graca Machel’s Daughter Opens Up After Being Brutally Beaten By Boyfriend

The boyfriend  left her with one blind eye and bruises, which although are healing well, are still very visible. But Josina Machel is clearly made of stronger stuff and not only has she posed for pictures showing off her injuries, but she has spoken about the assault which took place in Mozambique on October 17 – her mother’s 70th birthday. Josina Machel was at her boyfriends place and at the end of the evening, she asked him to take her to her family home because she wanted to be with her mother as she turned 70.

“I wanted to be with my mother; I wanted to experience my mother. I was missing her. We were going to celebrate her birthday the following day and so I just wanted to feel my mum around me. That is why I was so adamant about going home,” she said.

Her boyfriend refused and began throwing accusations at her and insulting her. “There were just insults, just bad words. He expressed his unhappiness about me wanting to go home. I have blocked them out of my mind somehow emotionally. They are just not words that I expected to hear from anyone. They were demeaning of any woman and of me,” she said.

While the insults were flying, she felt a punch in the face. “I was so shocked that I did what everybody does when something happens to you. You don’t turn towards your aggressor. You protect yourself and you try to protect your face, but to my surprise, I actually turned towards him and I asked ‘WHAT?!’

“That is how I got the second jab that blinded me, which ruptured the eye almost immediately. I felt the third one coming and that’s when I ran out of the car, ran away from him.”

Josina ran down the road in the affluent suburb, which houses diplomats and prominent people, screaming for help in Portuguese and English.