She was able to board an Air Zimbabwe flight after securing diplomatic immunity despite security services being on red alert after 20-year-old Gabriella Engels was injured, Reuters reported.
There have been calls for Mrs Mugabe to return to South Africa after pictures emerged of Engels with a gash above her left eye and of her wearing a large bandage.
The Mugabes say Ms Engels was the wounded in a nightclub brawl. But the model told South African paper Rapport she was beaten in a luxury hotel in Johannesburg, where the Mugabes were staying during a summit in Pretoria, when the first lady walked into a room looking for her sons.
‘She kept screaming, asking where her son was. The more we tried to explain they might be elsewhere in the hotel [but not with us], the less she wanted to believe it. ‘The next thing she hit my friend who was closest to her with the cord. She ran away and then she started hitting me.’
She says she was hit multiple times and that Mugabe hit her ‘with the sharp side of the extension cord’s plug for what seemed like forever.’
Protesters in Pretoria gathered to chant ‘Grace is a disgrace’ after word spread of the incident.
Yesterday the South African government said it was considering granting diplomatic immunity at the request of the Zimbabwean government, though there was no immediate comment from South African today but a security source told the Guardian that diplomatic immunity was granted.
Mugabe has previously faced criticism for her temper and lavish shopping habits, with her rising political profile provoking questions over whether she is maneuvering to succeed her husband.
In the diplomatic row Zimbabwe blocked flights by South Africa’s government-owned airline on Saturday after an Air Zimbabwe flight was grounded at Johannesburg’s main international airport the previous evening.
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