CENTURION - A Centurion father says he’s living every parent’s worst nightmare.
He's watching a war unfold thousands of kilometres away while his wife and daughter are trapped in it.
The man is desperate to get them out of Iran.
But he says the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) is failing to help him.
The father, who requested anonymity, says he approached South Africa’s diplomatic mission in Iran for help renewing his daughter’s passport earlier this year.
She needs the document to travel home.
But he says the process quickly became complicated, and they failed to assist him timeously.
"I've contacted all the relevant authorities for assistance, and it seems nobody wants to help. It seems nobody is interested, so the only option I have is to go there myself and be with my family," he said.
But what hurt him most, he says, were the words he heard during a phone call with a South African official stationed in Iran.
He says the response left him stunned. And the calls with his daughter are becoming harder.
"This has actually made me feel absolutely sick because there's nothing I can do for my family. The borders are closed. My five-year-old and the mother are stuck there," he said.
"The other day it almost broke me down. My daughter said: Daddy, are you also having an earthquake? And I didn't even know how to respond."
He says he simply wants a solution.
His fear for their safety grows with each passing day.
"They're not coping well. Soon they're going to run out of food. I was thinking to myself. They bombed the hospital. What if my daughter gets sick?
"It's my concern that exactly what happened in Palestine is going to happen in Iran. They're going to run out of food. Run out of resources. It is very concerning. I cannot put it into words."
He is now making a direct appeal to government.
"My appeal to them is to take the matter seriously and stop fooling the nation to actually make them think you're assisting. We basically have to beg DIRCO and officials to assist us."
But DIRCO says its hands are tied.
"As we speak, there is no travel document in our system for this five-year-old," said DIRCO spokesperson Clayson Monyela.
"We understand why the father is anxious, because the safety of his wife and daughter is at stake. But there's nothing we can do. We cannot process an application that does not exist."
The department also acknowledged concerns around the official’s conduct.
"When I spoke to the official in question, he admitted that perhaps the manner in which he delivered the message, the tone, was wrong," Monyela said.
"While what he may have been articulating was true, the delivery was wrong."
- eNCA’s Nabeelah Shaikh reports.