‘I NEVER HAD A CHOICE'

It was a mistake to rip her away from her loving foster parents to be reunited with her biological mom, Yolandi believes

- JANA VAN DER MERWE

SHE was six years old when her world was suddenly turned upside down – and now, 23 years later, she still recalls that fateful day as if it were yesterday.

“I clung to my mom and dad like a little monkey,”

Yolandi Els says. “They had to tear me away from them. It was extremely traumatic.”

The “mom and dad” she’s referring to are the foster parents who raised her from when she was just a few weeks old.

But six years later, her biological mom and her new husband came to take her away and Yolandi was forced to leave the people she considered her parents.

The story of two moms and the many tears shed between them made news headlines back then and featured in YOU in January 1997. Yolandi’s biological mom, Elize Rokebrand, spoke touchingly about the pain she went through when Yolandi was put into foster care as a baby.

“You can’t actually describe what it feels like when for six long years you’ve only been allowed to see your child in short visits. It’s terrible – both for you and for the child,” the then 24-year-old mother said tearfully.

But what was a joyful day for Elize when Yolandi was finally returned to her was a heart-rending time for Yolandi’s foster parents, Wanda and Hennie Schürmann. The day after Yolandi left, the atmosphere was sombre in their home in Arcadia, Pretoria, YOU reported at the time. “Our child’s been ripped away from us,” Wanda said.

Now 29, Yolandi has decided to speak out – to share her story as a cathartic way of dealing with the past and also to pay homage to the foster parents who gave her so much love and care.

“I can remember every detail of that day,” says Yolandi, speaking to YOU in the home she shares with her husband, Bruce (34), in Kempton Park, Gauteng.