Mom under suspicion of child neglect after her missing baby was found days after she had handed him to a stranger in a taxi.
|||Cape Town - A Khayelitsha mother is under arrest on suspicion of child neglect after her missing baby was found on Tuesday, four days after she had handed him to a stranger in a taxi.
Sindiswa Spayile, 29, said she had handed her six-month-old baby boy, Ngcwele, to a commuter as she tried to board a taxi on Friday, but before she could get in the doors closed and the taxi drove off.
She was taken into custody on Tuesday after the baby in blue pants with a white vest was found at a state safe house for women and children at risk in Khayelitsha’s Town 2.
“The child is unharmed, has been for a medical check and is in good care. Social workers from Harare took over the child on Friday night when a woman in the taxi brought him to the station,” said police spokesman FC van Wyk. A court date had not yet been set, he said.
Police said Spayile was arrested shortly after 4pm on Tuesday. The baby would remain in the care of the safe house until the police had completed the investigation.
Police and relatives had been searching for baby Ngcwele for four days. Social Development MEC Albert Fritz said that after he had read media reports about Spayile and her baby, he had instructed social workers from Khayelitsha to visit Spayile’s house to evaluate the home situation.
barbara.maregele@inl.co.za
Cape Times