Associated Press

Robert and Glory Smalls, the parents of a Yale University student who was missing for more than three weeks in South Africa, hold a news conference at New York's Kennedy Airport after being reunited with their daughter Natasha yesterday. Glory Smalls celebrated her daughter's return to the United States but criticized the State Department for not doing more to help saying, "I felt that if I was white, they would have reached out more." Natasha was missing for more than three weeks in South Africa following an alleged stay in a Zimbabwe psychiatric hospital.

Monday August 27, 2001 |

NEW YORK - A Yale University student missing for more than three weeks in South Africa, where she was studying on a Fulbright grant, returned to the United States yesterday.

Natasha Smalls, 20, told her parents on July 26 that she had been released from a psychiatric hospital in Zimbabwe where she had been injected with medication.

She also told her parents that she had been assaulted in March. Smalls had been studying at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa.

Glory and Robert Smalls had made arrangements for their daughter to return to New York, where they live, on Aug. 1, but she never arrived.

They criticized the State Department for not doing more to help.

"I felt that if I was white, they would have reached out more," Glory Smalls said at a news conference at Kennedy Airport. The Smalls are black.

Natasha Smalls was kept in a separate room from reporters before being taken to an undisclosed hospital.

State Department spokeswoman Michelle King said that both the South African and Zimbabwean consulates were notified of the disappearance and cooperated in the search.

"Of course, we're very happy that she has returned safely," King said, not responding directly to Glory Smalls' claim that race was an issue.

The parents also claimed that Yale officials were slow in coming to their aid.

A Yale spokesman, Tom Conroy, said the State Department already was trying to find Smalls when the school contacted the agency after learning of her disappearance on Aug. 8.

"We immediately contacted the State Department, knowing that the State Department would have the expertise to try to locate her in South Africa," Conroy said. "We cooperated with the State Department from then on."

In addition, Yale officials met with Smalls' mother and with Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, who helped the Smalls locate their daughter, Conroy said.

Two Yale employees who were in South Africa on unrelated business also helped, Conroy said, without saying how they assisted.

"I'm just glad that my daughter's here," Glory Smalls said. "I thank God that my daughter's here. People just don't know what I've been through for the last month. It was like a living hell."