BBC News

“I hugged the man who murdered my father”

I had the honor of speaking to BBC’s Lucy Wallis about my journey towards forgiveness

A short excerpt below and full interview: CLICK HERE

When Candice Mama was nine years old, she secretly opened a page in a book she wasn't meant to look at. The picture she saw there revealed something terrible - the dead body of her murdered father. But years later Candice went on to meet and forgive the killer - a man known as "Prime Evil", Eugene de Kock.

"Where did the girl go from Soweto, where did the girl go from Soweto…"

Whenever The Girl from Soweto by Clarence Carter plays on the radio, 29-year-old Candice Mama smiles - she knows this was one of her father's favourite songs.

Yet she never got to see him sing or dance along to it.

Glenack Masilo Mama died when Candice was just eight months old, so she spent her childhood piecing together an image of him from other people's memories.

"He was someone who really loved life," says Candice. "He was someone who was so just in the moment. If he heard a good song, no matter where he was, he was going to jump up and dance."

Candice was born in South Africa in 1991, as the apartheid system - enforcing strict segregation of races - was slowly being dismantled.