"Sorry Baby": SA Graduate Calls Out for Late Dad on Stage in TikTok Video
- Aphiwe Mjaja shared a graduation video on TikTok that moved thousands of South Africans to tears
- Before her father was killed in Mawoti, she called out for him while walking across the stage
- South Africans flooded the comments with condolences after watching the heartbreaking clip
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A South African graduate reduced thousands of people to tears after sharing a video of herself calling out for her now late father from the stage on her graduation day. Aphiwe Mjaja, known on TikTok as @aphiwerh_mjaja, posted the clip on 5 October. It quickly spread across the platform, drawing tens of thousands of responses from people across the country.
Source: TikTok
The video blends formal ceremony footage, showing Aphiwe in graduation attire among red-robed attendees, with joyful home clips of two people dancing in a kitchen, and a posed outdoor photo in a city plaza. The tone was celebratory, yet the caption beneath it tells a far heavier story.
Aphiwe wrote:
"Rest in peace baba wami. eMawoti bamubulala ubaba wam, brutally killed him, basithathela yena ["they took him from us"]. I pray that justice is served one day although we know nothing will be done."
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The TikTokker @aphiwerh_mjaja's caption revealed that her father was killed in Mawoti, and that she holds little hope justice will ever be delivered. Despite that pain, she still crossed the stage. The contrast between the joy on screen and the grief in her words was what stopped South Africans in their tracks. Watch the graduation video that moved South Africa:
Mzansi moved by woman in mourning
South Africans responded with an outpouring of love and sorrow in the comments:
@Xoliey_sile MacKedama said:
"Why do present fathers have to die, but absent ones keep living? 💔😔"
@Paballo "Ironwoman" Kgware said:
"Oooh Aphiwe sisi 🥺💔 my deepest condolences 💐"
@Azande Madlala| Hairdresser wrote:
"Ohh Aphiwe I'm so sorry baby 🥺❤️🫂"
@Dee Mazibuko Dube said:
"Present fathers are dying while absent ones remain'. Condolences young woman.'"
@vibeswith-bu said:
"That 'webaba!' ['my father!'] got me 😭"
@Sanele Anele added:
"Your father will be really happy to see you make it 🥹🥲"
Other Briefly News stories about emotional tributes
- A young university graduate visited his father's final resting place while wearing his graduation gown and cap to share news of his academic success six years after his passing.
- A young South African man took to social media to share a touching custom portrait created in memory of his late father, showing the two standing side by side.
- People were moved by a 25-year-old graduate from Engcobo in the Eastern Cape who stepped through the doors of an unfinished home he built to fulfil his late grandfather's dream.
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Source: Briefly News
