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The Smallest Ones: Two Sisters’ Escape from DRC Rebels and Their Pursuit of Freedom
Popina Khumanda was five years old when a group of strangers invaded her village, bringing fire and death and terror that a young girl should never imagine. The Smallest Ones is a harrowing and powerful true story of survival and resilience in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo in the early 2000s. Popina recounts her capture by rebel soldiers, the killing of neighbours and friends, and the cruel torture and rape of the survivors. She shows how young boys were moulded into child soldiers and others were forced into slave labour. She recalls her flight for freedom with her older sister, beginning an epic journey to South Africa – and how, even so far away, their nightmare was not over. The Smallest Ones bears witness to the destructive impact of conflict on innocent lives, particularly children and women. Written with raw emotion and unflinching honesty, this book will take you to the darkest corners of human experience, yet it is also a testament to the enduring power of hope and the will to survive. This is not just a story of tragedy, but a poignant exploration of the human spirit’s capacity to endure and overcome.
244 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 28, 2025
The Smallest Ones by Popina Khumanda tells the story of two sisters escape from a rebel camp in the DRC. After their home village is raided by Burundi Rebels during the period of war and a rebellion outbreak in The Democratic Republic Of Congo. Popina retells their escape and their journey from the Rebel Camp all the way to South Africa, a journey by foot which took 4 months. She explains and recounts everything she and her sister YaZiana endured throughout the journey. Being someone who was born in the DRC but did not grow up there, this was a truly profound and eye opening book for me.
Popina and her sister YaZiana went through so much and at times I had to stop reading. I honestly cannot wrap my head around what she and her sister had to endure. The pain and loss they encountered along their long journey, the family and friends they lost. The freedom they both fought so hard to achieve, from DRC to Zambia to Zimbabwe to Mozambique and finally South Africa.
Popina explains everything, holding nothing back, her thoughts and feelings. Trying to figure herself and understand herself in this world. Preserving despite the odds and difficulties against her. Learning a new language, trying to settle in a new environment, surviving on her own, standing up for herself. The Smallest Ones is a truly awe inspiring and eye opening book that I recommend to anyone. You don't have to have any relations to the DRC in order to read this book simply an interest to read about another person's story. From the first page I was hooked and I simply wanted to know more, I'm so happy I read this book. What an amazing and powerful woman Popina Khumanda is, I truly hope from the bottom of my heart that this book can reach out to more people and inspire them. Uplift them and remind them that nothing is impossible, as long as you have a strong resolve and determination. Even the most impossible of situations and circumstances can turn around in your favour!
Popina and her sister YaZiana went through so much and at times I had to stop reading. I honestly cannot wrap my head around what she and her sister had to endure. The pain and loss they encountered along their long journey, the family and friends they lost. The freedom they both fought so hard to achieve, from DRC to Zambia to Zimbabwe to Mozambique and finally South Africa.
Popina explains everything, holding nothing back, her thoughts and feelings. Trying to figure herself and understand herself in this world. Preserving despite the odds and difficulties against her. Learning a new language, trying to settle in a new environment, surviving on her own, standing up for herself. The Smallest Ones is a truly awe inspiring and eye opening book that I recommend to anyone. You don't have to have any relations to the DRC in order to read this book simply an interest to read about another person's story. From the first page I was hooked and I simply wanted to know more, I'm so happy I read this book. What an amazing and powerful woman Popina Khumanda is, I truly hope from the bottom of my heart that this book can reach out to more people and inspire them. Uplift them and remind them that nothing is impossible, as long as you have a strong resolve and determination. Even the most impossible of situations and circumstances can turn around in your favour!
April 28, 2026
This book is not a calm or gentle experience it’s an emotional storm that stays with you long after you’ve put the book down.
At first, there’s curiosity… that quiet excitement of opening a new story. But it quickly shifts into shock. The innocence of childhood is shattered so early and as a reader. One is not prepared for how deeply it cuts. You feel it in your chest the disbelief, the anger, the helplessness.
Then comes the pain. The kind that makes you pause, close the book and just sit there. The tears don’t come once they come again and again. You grieve with them. You ache for Popina, for YaZiana, for every child whose voice feels too small in a world that is too cruel.
There’s also frustration wishing you could change the story, wishing someone stepped in sooner, wishing the suffering would just end. At times, it feels unbearable, almost too heavy to continue… but something keeps pulling you back.
And that something is hope.
Because through all the brutality, there’s a quiet strength growing. You begin to admire Popina not just for surviving, but for refusing to give up. Her determination, her fight to learn, to rebuild, to become more… it slowly replaces despair with inspiration.
By the end, you’re still emotional but it’s different. It’s not just sadness anymore. It’s a deep respect for resilience, a reminder of human strength and a realization that even the most broken beginnings don’t define the end.
This book doesn’t just make you cry it makes you feel everything.
At first, there’s curiosity… that quiet excitement of opening a new story. But it quickly shifts into shock. The innocence of childhood is shattered so early and as a reader. One is not prepared for how deeply it cuts. You feel it in your chest the disbelief, the anger, the helplessness.
Then comes the pain. The kind that makes you pause, close the book and just sit there. The tears don’t come once they come again and again. You grieve with them. You ache for Popina, for YaZiana, for every child whose voice feels too small in a world that is too cruel.
There’s also frustration wishing you could change the story, wishing someone stepped in sooner, wishing the suffering would just end. At times, it feels unbearable, almost too heavy to continue… but something keeps pulling you back.
And that something is hope.
Because through all the brutality, there’s a quiet strength growing. You begin to admire Popina not just for surviving, but for refusing to give up. Her determination, her fight to learn, to rebuild, to become more… it slowly replaces despair with inspiration.
By the end, you’re still emotional but it’s different. It’s not just sadness anymore. It’s a deep respect for resilience, a reminder of human strength and a realization that even the most broken beginnings don’t define the end.
This book doesn’t just make you cry it makes you feel everything.
Read
September 25, 2025#TheSmallestOnes – Popina Khumanda
#PenguinRandomHouse
Disclaimer: On 19 September 2025 I attended the 2025 Wordfest at Rhodes University. Darryll David was in conversation with an unforgettable woman. She was young and beautiful, also brave beyond words, inspiring, smiling despite tears. Her name is Popina Khumanda.
As an additional cautionary word to sensitive readers, I will quote the warning printing in the preamble to her remarkable memoir: “In telling the story of the author’s experiences, this book contains scenes of physical and sexual violence which may disturb some readers.”
Popi was only five years old when the snakes entered her paradise, a little village in the DRC. Accustomed to freedom and peace in remoteness, despite the nature of the war-torn country of her birth, the arrival of the rapists introduced the beginning of the end of life as she knew it: “Little children in the village often played naked, but there was now a feeling of shame. I urgently needed to cover myself before someone tried to hurt me again…” (31)
The horrific preamble was followed by a relentless attack by Burundian rebels on their village. A young boy, Beya, was shot in the head amidst a game of soccer, huts were set alight, friends and family slaughtered, and the survivors, amongst them Popi and her twenty-one-year-old sister, YaZiana, were captured: “Everything happened in slow motion. I felt as if I had left my body and was looking at the scene from somewhere else.” (34)
The reasons for the capture were gruesome, young boys were forced (failure or refusal were met with execution) to rape their sisters, mothers, and cousins as part of an initiation into becoming ruthless child soldiers, “We are in hell… I was raped by more men and boys than I could count” (42), whilst some prisoners were forced to become slaves in the mines, often dying without ever seeing sunlight again, and others were sacrificed to feed the market trading in illegal organs. Popi narrowly escaped the latter: “Her eyes are too small… I’m looking for eyes and a liver.” (46)
Hunger was a constant companion, leading to the inevitable consequence of cannibalism. Initially limited to corpses, desperation later required proverbial sacrificial lambs: “The smell of cooking meat from the fire. The horror…” (67) After five years in captivity, learning that “someone can become stronger and weaker at the same time” (71), Popi and Ziana managed to escape. It would take them four months to reach South Africa via Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
South Africa might have been a refuge in comparison, but it was certainly no Utopia. Popi’s journey on local soil commenced with an extended stay in the Park Station toilets, followed by a cage in an underground brothel, abusive foster homes, challenges in respect of language barriers, a lack of education, and no access to finances. Despite her first day of school being at age twelve in a country where virtually nobody spoke her language, Lingala, she learnt to speak, write and read Afrikaans and English fluently within six months, obtained her matric certificate in 2013 and proceeded to complete a degree in IT at the Nelson Mandela University.
The loss and sadness remained a constant undercurrent: “My voice broke as I shouted to no one. “I passed!” I looked around, searching for a familiar face, someone to share this moment with. But there was no one. No family. No friends. Just a crowd of strangers. I dropped to my knees, and the tears came hot and heavy. The loneliness, the journey I had travelled to get to this moment.” (203)
Freedom, she learnt to understand, “isn’t just the absence of chains or oppression. It’s about being able to make choices, to find opportunities and be empowered to act on them.” (viii) The horrors of the past may forever remain as scars on her psyche, but her courage and determination have fulfilled the prophecy rendered by YaZiana so many years ago: “This isn’t about me or you, or even about us. This is about the lives you are going to change.” (111)
The book is much more than a retelling of her journey, it stands as a beacon of hope in a broken world, reminding readers that Popi is living proof of the possibility to rebuild yourself, bit by bit, even after everything has fallen apart repeatedly.
#Uitdieperdsebek
#PenguinRandomHouse
Disclaimer: On 19 September 2025 I attended the 2025 Wordfest at Rhodes University. Darryll David was in conversation with an unforgettable woman. She was young and beautiful, also brave beyond words, inspiring, smiling despite tears. Her name is Popina Khumanda.
As an additional cautionary word to sensitive readers, I will quote the warning printing in the preamble to her remarkable memoir: “In telling the story of the author’s experiences, this book contains scenes of physical and sexual violence which may disturb some readers.”
Popi was only five years old when the snakes entered her paradise, a little village in the DRC. Accustomed to freedom and peace in remoteness, despite the nature of the war-torn country of her birth, the arrival of the rapists introduced the beginning of the end of life as she knew it: “Little children in the village often played naked, but there was now a feeling of shame. I urgently needed to cover myself before someone tried to hurt me again…” (31)
The horrific preamble was followed by a relentless attack by Burundian rebels on their village. A young boy, Beya, was shot in the head amidst a game of soccer, huts were set alight, friends and family slaughtered, and the survivors, amongst them Popi and her twenty-one-year-old sister, YaZiana, were captured: “Everything happened in slow motion. I felt as if I had left my body and was looking at the scene from somewhere else.” (34)
The reasons for the capture were gruesome, young boys were forced (failure or refusal were met with execution) to rape their sisters, mothers, and cousins as part of an initiation into becoming ruthless child soldiers, “We are in hell… I was raped by more men and boys than I could count” (42), whilst some prisoners were forced to become slaves in the mines, often dying without ever seeing sunlight again, and others were sacrificed to feed the market trading in illegal organs. Popi narrowly escaped the latter: “Her eyes are too small… I’m looking for eyes and a liver.” (46)
Hunger was a constant companion, leading to the inevitable consequence of cannibalism. Initially limited to corpses, desperation later required proverbial sacrificial lambs: “The smell of cooking meat from the fire. The horror…” (67) After five years in captivity, learning that “someone can become stronger and weaker at the same time” (71), Popi and Ziana managed to escape. It would take them four months to reach South Africa via Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
South Africa might have been a refuge in comparison, but it was certainly no Utopia. Popi’s journey on local soil commenced with an extended stay in the Park Station toilets, followed by a cage in an underground brothel, abusive foster homes, challenges in respect of language barriers, a lack of education, and no access to finances. Despite her first day of school being at age twelve in a country where virtually nobody spoke her language, Lingala, she learnt to speak, write and read Afrikaans and English fluently within six months, obtained her matric certificate in 2013 and proceeded to complete a degree in IT at the Nelson Mandela University.
The loss and sadness remained a constant undercurrent: “My voice broke as I shouted to no one. “I passed!” I looked around, searching for a familiar face, someone to share this moment with. But there was no one. No family. No friends. Just a crowd of strangers. I dropped to my knees, and the tears came hot and heavy. The loneliness, the journey I had travelled to get to this moment.” (203)
Freedom, she learnt to understand, “isn’t just the absence of chains or oppression. It’s about being able to make choices, to find opportunities and be empowered to act on them.” (viii) The horrors of the past may forever remain as scars on her psyche, but her courage and determination have fulfilled the prophecy rendered by YaZiana so many years ago: “This isn’t about me or you, or even about us. This is about the lives you are going to change.” (111)
The book is much more than a retelling of her journey, it stands as a beacon of hope in a broken world, reminding readers that Popi is living proof of the possibility to rebuild yourself, bit by bit, even after everything has fallen apart repeatedly.
#Uitdieperdsebek
July 25, 2025
The best book I've read this year.
Written with raw emotion and unflinching honesty this is a must read book. Having travelled to what was formerly known as Zaire I was drawn to this book to learn more about the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s based on the journey of two sisters who are captured by rebel soldiers in the early 2000s. Khumanda and her older sister YaZiana are forced travel, mostly on foot, almost 3 000 kilometres from the northern corner of DRC to Lubumbashi on the border of Zambia. They then do a further 2 000 kilometres to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and finally Johannesburg. Not speaking a word of English they survive only to be separated and later reunited in Gqeberha.
It’s a disturbing read, in fact it comes with a warning, “in telling the story of the author’s experiences, this book contains scenes of physical and sexual violence which may disturb some readers.”
The story begins in Businga village. Untouched by the world’s chaos, five-year-old Popina enjoys the simple delights of childhood. With carefree delight she climbs mango trees, chases baby baboons and explores the open fields. However, her innocence is shattered in an instant when a group of strangers invade the village. Bringing fire and terror they kill her neighbours and family and cruelly torture and rape the survivors.
In the words of their captor, Kantu wa Milandu whom the sisters called Three Eyes because he wore an eye patch, “the DRC is going down. This will become our land as promised”. “War is coming. And this is not the first war. This country and its people have no sense of peace. The sooner we fight, the sooner we can bring the last man down”.
Khumanda reveals every detail of her thoughts, feelings and experiences, holding nothing back.
After years in captivity they escape. Barefoot and starving Khumanda writes of wanting to give up their fight for freedom. However, under the scrutiny of YaZiana she’s forced to continue. Driven by the promise of getting an education in South Africa they arrive in Johannesburg four months later. But their nightmare is not over.
Sometimes I left the book for a few days struggling to get my head around the atrocities they endured, not only at the hands of rebels. This book is a truly awe inspiring and eye opening read that I recommend to anyone.
Written with raw emotion and unflinching honesty this is a must read book. Having travelled to what was formerly known as Zaire I was drawn to this book to learn more about the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s based on the journey of two sisters who are captured by rebel soldiers in the early 2000s. Khumanda and her older sister YaZiana are forced travel, mostly on foot, almost 3 000 kilometres from the northern corner of DRC to Lubumbashi on the border of Zambia. They then do a further 2 000 kilometres to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and finally Johannesburg. Not speaking a word of English they survive only to be separated and later reunited in Gqeberha.
It’s a disturbing read, in fact it comes with a warning, “in telling the story of the author’s experiences, this book contains scenes of physical and sexual violence which may disturb some readers.”
The story begins in Businga village. Untouched by the world’s chaos, five-year-old Popina enjoys the simple delights of childhood. With carefree delight she climbs mango trees, chases baby baboons and explores the open fields. However, her innocence is shattered in an instant when a group of strangers invade the village. Bringing fire and terror they kill her neighbours and family and cruelly torture and rape the survivors.
In the words of their captor, Kantu wa Milandu whom the sisters called Three Eyes because he wore an eye patch, “the DRC is going down. This will become our land as promised”. “War is coming. And this is not the first war. This country and its people have no sense of peace. The sooner we fight, the sooner we can bring the last man down”.
Khumanda reveals every detail of her thoughts, feelings and experiences, holding nothing back.
After years in captivity they escape. Barefoot and starving Khumanda writes of wanting to give up their fight for freedom. However, under the scrutiny of YaZiana she’s forced to continue. Driven by the promise of getting an education in South Africa they arrive in Johannesburg four months later. But their nightmare is not over.
Sometimes I left the book for a few days struggling to get my head around the atrocities they endured, not only at the hands of rebels. This book is a truly awe inspiring and eye opening read that I recommend to anyone.
April 26, 2026
It was very painful to read this book because of all the horrors of violence exposed on innocent children and women in conflict. The scenes of abuse, especially involving young girls, are heartbreaking and disturbing, forcing you to confront a reality that feels too cruel to be real, the loss of innocence, trauma. How did violence become normalised? Children turned into soldiers, communities torn apart, exploration, forced labour, even cannibalism, where is humanity? Through her journey, the story reminds that even in the worst circumstances, humanity can still exist in acts of kindness, perseverance, will to survive and hope.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews