Survivors of deadly bus crash in Lesotho share grief — and faith — in wake of tragedy

MAPUTSOE, Lesotho — Following a July 16 memorial service for victims of a tragic multivehicle accident that claimed the lives of 15 individuals, including six young women and four Church leaders en route to a Latter-day Saint Young Women activity in this southern African nation, seven teenage survivors huddled close to one another under the African winter sun.

Their names might not be as common to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as Mary, Abish or Sariah. But their story of faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and of God as their Heavenly Father is no less inspiring than any found in ancient scripture.

Mpho Anicia Nku, 14, summarizes what they have learned since the accident one month ago in a powerful sentiment: “Trust in Jesus and always look unto Him because through Him you’ll find peace, and He will help you in the healing process.”

Preparing to join the country’s young women

In the months leading up to Saturday, June 21, the young women of the Maputsoe Branch — one of eight branches in the Maseru Lesotho District — prepared for an annual activity with other Latter-day Saint young women from their nation.

Lesotho, where the Church has the single district, is one of three countries in the world that is completely surrounded by a single other country. In this case, South Africa encompasses the Kingdom of Lesotho. It is a country similar in size to the European nation of Belgium or the state of Maryland in the United States. June is part of the country’s winter and leaves the surrounding vegetation dry, yellow and thirsting for spring rain. Its nearly 2.5 million inhabitants look forward to the spring season and warmer temperatures.

With June being a cooler month annually, the young women from the eight district branches travel from across the nation to join one another in the capital city of Maseru to learn about the Savior, to engage with others who share their same beliefs and to have fun before returning home.

But this year’s activity would be remembered for something other than great classes and fun activities. This year would be marred by tragedy.

Qolesoe Mokhosi is one of four 17-year-old young women in the Maputsoe Branch. Her branch president, President Moeti Daniel Molateli, encouraged her to invite as many of her fellow young women as she could to sign up for the trip to Maseru, more than 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the southwest.

In response to her leader’s invitation, Qolesoe was persistent; 20 young women, including herself, showed up that Saturday morning for the two-hour bus ride down the two-lane highway.

As was typical for the group, they sang songs as they packed the bus and waited for the time to leave. They have favorite hymns and songs from the Church’s youth theme albums. And they enjoyed singing with each other at the small chapel where they met that day.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed them all so hard to come,” Qolesoe says, looking back at those weeks leading up to the activity. “Maybe they would still be here.”

An accident becomes a catalyst

The 20 young women boarded the small bus with two drivers and seven leaders. Among the leaders were President Molateli and his wife, Makeketso Mokhethi Molateli.

As they drove in the morning hours toward Maseru, a red car traveling in the opposite direction, ahead of the bus, attempted to pass another automobile and came into the lane occupied by the bus. Both space and time were insufficient to avoid the collision of the vehicles.

The details of exactly what happened may not ever be clear. But within seconds, the moving vehicles hit, rolled off the road and burst into flames.

President and Sister Molateli both died in the accident, along with Lieketso Molaoa, a 24-year-old leader in the branch’s Young Women. Nthabeleng Lebina, 16; Omphile Denise Lephakha, 16; Masechaba Julia Komane, 15; Lerato Lets’ase, 14; and Nthabiseng Motabola, 13, also died in the accident. Realeboha Matsau, 17, was badly injured and was taken to a hospital in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Nthabiseng Posholi, another 24-year-old leader, was taken to a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. Neither Batsau nor Posholi would return home and died in the hospitals.

One month later, Thato Lephakha, 13, and Mamothobi Lydia Mothebe, 12, are still in a hospital in Johannesburg. Moliehi Selebeli, 11, is in the hospital in Bloemfontein. Phokotsana Alphoncina Rakuoane, an adult leader, is in the hospital in Leribe, Lethoso. Qolesoe — the excited young woman who invited her friends to join the activity — and Mapule Joyce Takane, an adult leader, are in a hospital in Maseru.

The remaining 11 of the 17 survivors of the accident are home and recovering from various injuries sustained in the crash. In all, 15 people died as a result of the accident.

‘Who am I to fight against God?’

“Am I angry at the driver of the red car? No,” said Mathepelo Allysa Selikane, 17. “But I am maybe a little angry at red cars.”

Despite the indescribable pain of losing friends and leaders in such an accident, Mathepelo sits in the middle of her fellow survivors with a bright smile, a little bit of humor and a calm kind of happiness behind her tear-filled eyes.

To Mathepelo’s left sits Nthabiseng Morasenyane. The 17-year-old Nthabiseng gets around slowly with the help of a walker. She has a corset-type brace around her body to help her back heal from the accident. She said doctors anticipate she will need it for another six months.

“I’m not feeling well,” Nthabiseng admitted. “But what I know is that this is part of life. I can’t believe it happened, but it did.”

When she recalled the events of the morning, Nthabiseng said she remembers the young women said the Young Women theme together. They looked forward to reciting it with all the other young women in their district in Maseru.

During the accident, a few of the young women ended up on top of her, she said. She was worried she wouldn’t be able to get out if they didn’t get off of her, but she later counted it as a blessing because they protected her from the flames. While her back is injured, she does not have the same level of burns that many of the others have.

Sitting with her arms crossed and shrinking away from any attention, 14-year-old Malehlohonolo Adel Sekoala listened to and watched the others in the group talk. Her Strive to Be ring reflected the sunlight as she fidgeted to get comfortable.

“It’s hard to explain how I felt not seeing all of my friends get out of the van that was on fire,” she said. “It hurt — a lot.”

That pain was echoed by the group. It was a physical pain from the accident and the ensuing fire. But it was also the pain of losing friends.

“I know God has a plan, and who am I to fight against God?” Malehlohonolo asked. While that knowledge is hard to embrace right now, she said it is comforting to know that she will see her friends again one day.

Mathepelo jumped into the conversation to add that they had talked that morning about loving one line in the Young Women theme.

“We are taught we are daughters of God with a divine nature and an eternal destiny,” she said.

The pendulum constantly swings as the group talks with each other. They have testimonies of many gospel principles. They are full of gratitude. They are in pain. They are full of love. They have bad dreams. They pray. They find comfort in scriptures. They cry. They long.

Many in the group see one another every day. Many of those days include some time together at the branch’s meetinghouse. They sing together. They study scriptures. They tell stories.

Makeresemese Mofokeng, 16, said she still thinks about being pulled away from the fire by police officers who arrived on the scene. Like others, it is hard for her to explain how she got out of the van.

Mathepelo said it felt like they were pushed out of the van. How were they pushed? By whom? They don’t know. But they shared similar feelings about not knowing how they ended up outside the van or when it happened.

Tlhonolofatso Alinah Morasenyane is the 12-year-old younger sister of Nthabiseng. She said she felt protected in the moment of the accident. For that, she says she feels grateful. But she also said she feels sad to think about those friends she won’t see again at church.

Mpho said her biggest feeling has been one of loneliness at the loss of her friends.

Feeling comfort through sacred music

That loneliness hits home for Setso’ana Selebeli, who misses hearing her hospitalized sister, Moliehi, singing at home.

“It’s hard to live without her in the house,” Setso’ana said. “I remember everything she does. She loves to sing, but now she’s not here, so no one is singing for us.”

While there may be an absence of her sister’s singing at home, the group still enjoys singing songs of praise when they are together.

At the conclusion of their interview after the memorial service, the seven young women who spoke with Church News opted to sing a song before finishing. They chose the hymn “Secret Prayer” and sang all four verses. They sang with great reverence and harmony befitting of the moment — tears coming and going.

Singing sacred music was a recurring theme in speaking with the young women — in the memorial service and at the hospital in Maseru.

Mapule Joyce Takane and Qolesoe share a room at the hospital in Maseru. The leader and young woman have also found solace in songs. Their favorite during these four weeks spent recovering from their burns is from the 2024 youth theme album. It is called “Beloved.” They don’t need an app for the words or the music. They both began singing as soon as one mentioned the song to the other.

Helping one another at the hospital

Takane and Qolesoe are separated by 10 years in age but will forever share a unique bond after spending a month together in their room at a hospital in Maseru.

Their road to a full recovery involves doctors and nurses changing many bandages on a strict schedule. When the bandages are removed, Qolesoe says, she enjoys the temporary freedom of movement. But the wounds are still healing and hurt when exposed to the air. When new bandages are wrapped around her hands and arms, she loses movement of her individual fingers, but her healing skin feels slightly better to have medicine applied with the new wrap.

Like the contrasting physical feelings experienced with her healing arms, the 17-year-old Qolesoe has felt a variety of emotions over the last month.

“I’ve been feeling angry, sad, depressed a little and guilty,” she said, as she instinctively folds and unfolds a small piece of paper with the exposed tips of her fingers.

She said she is constantly trying to reconcile the negative feelings with ones of hope and faith. She wants to understand why her friends and leaders died. She wants to know why she was spared — especially when she doesn’t remember actively trying to escape.

Some of her questions will not likely be answered in this life. And she is learning to put those to the side and focus on the questions she can answer. She and Takane study the scriptures together; they each are filling out Book of Mormon reading charts.

“Lately we’ve been reading in Moroni, and Moroni says exactly what I’ve been feeling,” she said. “It’s like he wrote that for me — to console me, to help me heal. When he speaks, it’s like he’s saying, ‘You have to learn these words because they are written for you to help you pass through this.’”

Takane used to not believe in God in any way. A young man she was dating, Tshepang Thabane, regularly talked about his personal spiritual experiences and told her that she would be happier if she understood more about God as well. While working at her job with President Molateli, the branch president told Takane where he went to church each Sunday. Her interest was piqued, and she began her own journey from nonbeliever to baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Thabane is happy that she has developed a testimony of Heavenly Father, and he visits her regularly in the hospital while she recovers from her burn injuries. Her purpose in life, she said, is to now discover why her life was spared in the accident.

“Constantly serving God is how I will come to an answer, if I come to an answer,” she said. That desire to serve Him comes from her newfound appreciation for life, and it springs from the love she has developed for Him.

“I used to think that I love God, but now I really, really, really, really, really love Him,” she said. “Now He is the No. 1 priority in my life.”

Prior to leaving for the youth activity, Takane had already made arrangements to begin attending temple preparation classes at church. The plan was to do double lessons each week to get ready to receive her endowment. She also received her passport — which is needed to attend the Johannesburg South Africa Temple.

After she receives her endowment, Takane said, she hopes to serve a mission.

“I want to serve a mission because I feel like it is one of the things that is going to help me grow closer to God,” she said. “I’ve got to do it. I have to do it.”

A pivot from mundane to essential

Each of the young women seems to understand that what they have experienced is outside of the normal experience for anyone, young or old. And they know that the eyes of their community and many around the world are on them. Their advice to those who wonder how they have made it through such a tragedy is simple but refined.

“I would tell them to have faith in Jesus Christ. They should love Jesus Christ with all their heart,” said Mathepelo.

And she pointed to this year’s youth theme scripture as being one that they have all leaned on for strength.

Doctrine and Covenants 6:36 reads: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”

That lack of fear as they look to the future is evident when asked if they will attend future Young Women events. Before the question is finished, all seven shout affirmatively that they will go.

“I mean, we’re not supposed to be afraid of cars now,” Mathepelo quips. “God knew what was going to happen and knows what’s going to happen, so we don’t need to be scared.”

None of the young women have been to a temple yet, but they say that they want to go and feel close to their friends and leaders who have died.

They say they feel close to the Spirit when they study their scriptures. That was a promise made to them by their Young Women leaders who died in the accident.

“They used to tell us to read the scriptures every day. They used to shout at us and tell us to read. ‘You don’t read. You have to learn this,’” Setso’ana remembers. “Death is something that can happen at any time, so I want to learn now. I want to learn more.”

Only two of the seven young women at the memorial attended any Primary classes as children. None were born to families that were already members of the Church. The rest joined the Church as teenagers.

Qolesoe said that when she used to read the scriptures, she did it because she was told to.

“You can do that and get the message, but right now when I read the scriptures, when I look at my life, I don’t feel like I was understanding the scriptures the way I do now. I feel them way stronger in my heart. My soul feels them in a different way,” she said.

Planning for the future

Looking to the future, the young women each have ideas about where they will be and what they will be doing. But they all agreed on one thing that they all want to do.

“A lot of people don’t know about the word of God,” Makeresemese said.

With that in mind, she and the others all want to serve missions.

“I want others to feel how I feel right now,” Mathepelo said. “I want them to know about the Church and more about Jesus Christ.”

Malehlohonolo said she wants people “to know that God lives. God is there. He’s always there — in good times and bad.”

Qolesoe says she hopes that people will learn to understand, “God is truly merciful. No matter what you go through, He loves us.”

She hopes that no one will have to go through what she and her friends have to come to their knowledge of God’s love and mercy. And she said she knows that it doesn’t take that kind of event for individuals to make their own efforts to grow close to the Savior.

“Hold on to Him. God knows the end of all the pain. Just keep holding on to Him.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Tlhonolofatso Alinah Morasenyane in her photo.