Lorraine Rens, 55, says the worst part is that she still had hoped of getting back together with her hubby, Marco Nyombo Kisimba, 46.
“Last Friday I discovered on Facebook that my husband remarried,” the nurse says.
“I was looking at his WhatsApp profile photo and he was overdressed, so I went onto Facebook and saw he had remarried on 2 April.”
The couple, who don't have children, met while they both worked at Groote Schuur Hospital and married in 2001.
But she separated from him in October 2015.
“Today I still can’t think what went wrong. He was a quiet guy and a gentleman, and not a womaniser,” says Lorraine.
She eventually filed for divorce, but it had not been finalised yet, which means she and Kisimba, a billing analyst, were still legally wed.
“We’ve been separated for a year-and-a-half, but I had hope of us getting back together.”
EITSA: Facebook picture on Kisimba’s page with his new wife on April 2. CREDIT: Supplied
It was a huge shock to see her husband had married another woman.
“His new wife is the sister-in-law of the pastor who married us,” says Lorraine.
“(On Monday) I went to (the Department of) Home Affairs to get my divorce certificate, as I thought my husband went ahead and divorced without me (being present).
“No record (of divorce existed). I was sent to divorce court, no record again, after which they told me to contact my ex-husband to obtain the divorce case number and place of divorce.”
But when she called him, he refused to speak with her.
She then went to his workplace where she met with their pastor, Colin Beya, of the Rehoboth Church, who confirmed he conducted the wedding ceremony, without evidence that Marco is divorced.
“The wedding was on the pastor’s Facebook page, it was a full-blown wedding with a reception in a garden,” says an angry Lorraine.
“A case of (bigamy) indeed, which needs to expose these so-called people who enter our country under the name of pastors.
When contacted, Beya denied marrying Kisimba, saying: “I just prayed for them, but did not marry them.”
Kisimba commented briefly before suddenly insisting he did not want any of his comments published.
Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Thabo Mokgola said that, in terms of South African legislation, bigamy is prohibited and illegal and a punishable offence, and that such marriages are also null and void.