BACK WHERE HE BELONGS
Drum English|2 April 2020
The parents of a three-month-old baby boy recall the trauma they went through when he was abducted
THOMO NKGADIMA
BACK WHERE HE BELONGS

SHE was gripped by so much fear and panic she could barely get a word out when she tried to tell the police what had happened.

It was almost impossible to find the words that no parent ever wants to hear themselves say – “My child has been kidnapped.”

Dipuo Nyambiri was overwhelmed and sobbing uncontrollably when she told the police her three-month-old boy had been taken from her at the Mamelodi West Clinic.

Dipuo (35) had brought little Tshegofatso to the clinic for his scheduled 14-week vaccinations. She wasn’t the least bit suspicious when a friendly woman seated next to her complimented her on her adorable infant and asked if she could hold him.

The stranger held him and played with him for a few minutes, until he dozed off, while the conversation between her and his mother turned to the spread of the Covid-19 virus.

As they chatted, a nurse approached them. “She came to tell us to undress our kids as it was time to weigh them,” recalls Dipuo, a domestic worker, who was listening attentively to the nurse.

“In the blink of an eye, the woman disappeared with my baby.”

Dipuo was overcome with panic. “I felt as if I was going mad when I realised the stranger had disappeared with my child,” she says.

Frantic, she ran into the street to look up and down the road. “Then I went back inside the clinic to search in the toilets, but she was nowhere to be found.”

This story is from the 2 April 2020 edition of Drum English.

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This story is from the 2 April 2020 edition of Drum English.

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