The body of three-year-old Olivia van Voeght, who had been missing since Tuesday, was found in a vlei in Lotus River.
|||Cape Town - The body of three-year-old Olivia van Voeght, who had been missing since Tuesday, was found floating in a vlei in Lotus River on Thursday.
Olivia’s parents were charged with child neglect on Wednesday afternoon.
A man and a woman, also arrested on Wednesday, were released on Thursday night.
Provincial police spokesman Colonel Tembinkosi Kinana said: “As the investigation continues we will see if there are any other charges.”
Olivia lived with her mother and older sister in a flat in Grassy Park owned by Eva Fortuin, who lived there with her adult son.
Fortuin said on Tuesday that at about 8pm, Olivia’s father, who was visiting the flat, put her to bed in a room in which Fortuin’s son and his girlfriend were asleep. A friend of the son’s was also there.
On Wednesday morning, when another sister, Meagan van Voeght, 19, who looks after Olivia during the day, went to collect her, she was nowhere to be found.
The little girl was reported missing, a search was launched and flyers were distributed.
Later on Wednesday, both Olivia’s parents were arrested. They are expected to appear in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
On Thursday, Olivia’s body was discovered after police in a helicopter spotted the body of a little girl in a pink top floating in Zeekoevlei.
Fortuin told the Cape Argus:
“We only knew she was missing after her sister came to pick her up.”
Fortuin said the last time she saw the little girl was on Tuesday when her father put her to bed in a room in the flat.
A heartbroken Meagan said she fetched her sister every morning and looked after her.
“When I went to fetch her (on Wednesday) I asked my eldest sister, Dora Jumat, where she was, and she said she thought Olivia was with me.”
Jumat’s son Junior, 3, who often played with Olivia on a footbridge near the vlei, said she had fallen into the river. “But no one believed him,” said Meagan.
Jumat said she would go to the morgue to identify her sister’s body on Friday. “But it must be her, that’s her pink top.”
Jumat described Meagan as a little girl who liked to talk and laugh.
Social Development MEC Albert Fritz said it appeared as though Olivia had been left alone while her parents were out.
“Too often children fall prey to criminals in our society because the very people who must love, care for and protect them, have abandoned their responsibilities.”
The councillor for Lotus River Ward 65, Leslie Isaacs, said the body of another small child had been found in the river last week. “We need to make this river safer.”
Isaacs said they were looking into putting fencing around the river. He also called for more visible policing.
zodidi.dano@inl.co.za
Cadet News Agency
Cape Argus
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