BACK WHERE HE BELONGS

The parents of a three-month-old baby boy recall the trauma they went through when he was abducted

- THOMO NKGADIMA

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.”