Kidnapped baby 'a gift'

2007-02-01 15:35

Thabisile Khoza

Manzini, Swaziland - A South African woman kidnapped her friend's newborn baby boy from a hospital in Swaziland this week and managed to smuggle him into South Africa.

The baby was kidnapped at RSM Hospital in Manzini on Monday when his mother went to the toilet and left him with the kidnapper.

The baby's mother, Gabisile Mamba, 25, of Nkhoyoyo village near the Swaziland capital of Mbabane, told police that she and the kidnapper both sold fruit for a living and had been sharing a room in Manzini for about five weeks.

The kidnapper returned home to Mgobodzi village in South Africa with the new baby on Tuesday.

The kidnapper's sister immediately alerted chief of the Mawewe Tribal Authority, Eva Mkhatshwa.

"She said that when she saw her sister in November, she wasn't pregnant, so she couldn't have had a baby," said Mkhatshwa on Thursday.

Mkhatshwa alerted the South African police and Mamba was called to collect her child on Wednesday and take him back to Swaziland.

Tonga police spokesperson constable Mzwandile Nyambi said the kidnapper was arrested, but then released on Wednesday because the crime had been committed in Swaziland.

"She didn't commit any crime in our country, so we decided to release her to face the law in Swaziland," he said.

He said that the kidnapper said she had stolen the baby because she wanted to give him to her boyfriend as a gift.

The kidnapper had managed to cross the border by producing a receipt from RSM Hospital and convincing border officials that she'd given birth in Swaziland.

According to Vusi Ndukuya, a member of the Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Mozambique Child Trafficking Task Team, a crime had definitely been committed as it is illegal to smuggle children across borders.

He said about 100 children were trafficked through Mpumalanga's Nkomazi area, which borders Swaziland and Mozambique, in any one month.

- African Eye