Mysterious man in Canadian jail is Mbuyisa Makhubu, says brother of anti-apartheid icon

A moon-like birth mark on the left chest. The knowledge of the landscape of the family home and location of the coal box in the yard. Information about the year their father left and where he died.

Raul Makhubu says these details should be enough proof to identify the mysterious man languishing in immigration detention in Canada for 10 years as his long-lost elder brother, anti-apartheid icon Mbuyisa Makhubu.

This man gave information that only a member of our family can be aware of, Makhubu said in an interview from Johannesburg.

He divulged all the information about the landscape in our home, how everything stood like in our yard. He knew our parents names. No one knows about my fathers history and what he was called at home. Yet this gentleman in detention in Canada knows all about this. I know he is my brother.

Now 52 and still recovering from a recent stroke, Makhubu said he is hoping to appeal to the South African and Canadian governments through the Star to release the man in detention and return him to his family as soon as possible.

It has been 38 years since our search for my brother. What is it that is delaying my brother from coming back home? asked Makhubu, who is planning to fundraise for a trip to meet the detainee in Canada.

Mbuyisa is my only brother. With our mother having passed on, I need him to come back home.

Mbuyisa was just 18 during the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa when he was photographed carrying the dying Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old shot by police on June 16 that year.

The image, which captured the apartheid governments brutality against the African majority population, became a symbol of resistance and June 16 has since been marked as National Youth Day.

Mbuyisa, who wouldve been 56-year-old by now, was forced into hiding shortly after the picture was published. His family last heard from him in 1978 in a letter from Nigeria.

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Mysterious man in Canadian jail is Mbuyisa Makhubu, says brother of anti-apartheid icon