A mother’s worst nightmare

forget.
After she joined a queue at the hospital, she sat next to a young woman who acted all sweet and friendly.
The stranger started asking Siwala questions which centred on the age of her baby and where Siwala came from and told her how beautiful her baby was.
As the two continued with their conversation, Siwala’s baby started crying, prompting the stranger, Alleta Mutungambera (20), to offer assistance in comforting it.
Without any misgiving Siwala handed over the infant to Mutungambera. With the baby in her arms, rocking her around, Mutungambera complained of being thirsty before she asked for an empty plastic bottle to fetch some water from the male ward taps.
Because she appeared so innocent and genuine in the eyes of Siwala, Mutungambera got a two-litre plastic bottle from one of the women before she advanced towards the male ward with the infant in her arms.
Mutungambera, however, changed direction and proceeded to the female ward were she got some water before vanishing into a nearby bush through a different exit with the infant strapped to her back.
Still patient and expecting Mutungambera to return with her baby, Siwala was only forced to make a follow-up after her turn to be served had arrived.
“We searched all over in the male and female wards without any success, I never realised I had trusted a baby-snatcher. My tears could not help, as most of the women around blamed me for what had happened.
“I ran around the hospital like a mad person and almost everyone at the hospital tried their best to help.
“I thank the hospital staff and the police for their efforts and that eventually led to the whereabouts of my baby. I learnt a stern lesson and I will never trust strangers again,” said Siwala holding her baby at Magunje Growth Point.
When Mutungambera passed through the female ward, some women who knew her from her rural home in Chief Mudzimu area saw her with the baby and using that information police at Magunje reacted swiftly and rushed to her rural home where they got her address at Magunje Growth Point.
Police later visited Mutungambera’s place of residence and got the information that she had gone to the mission hospital to deliver.
The following day Mutungambera was still nowhere to be found, only to resurface during the early hours of the third day after stealing Siwala’s baby.
Mutungambera was arrested at her house about 3am after she had disembarked from one of the early morning buses and lied that she was coming from the hospital where she had gone to deliver her new baby.
It was, in fact, later established that Mutungambera, who had no child with her current husband, had lied to him claiming that she was pregnant.
It is also believed she did this as a way of saving her marriage since the husband was always complaining about their childless union.
The husband went on to buy several items in preparation for their “new baby” before leaving for work.
At the time Mutungambera was arrested, she had already renamed the baby Nomsa, a name suggested by her husband.
When police took Mutungambera for medical examination to determine whether she had been pregnant or not, specialists at Karoi Hospital who examined her revealed that Mutungambera had never fallen pregnant in the past six months.
Mutungambera, who appeared before Karoi magistrate Mr Robson Finsin recently, was slapped with a two-year effective jail term after pleading guilty to kidnapping charges.
Asked why she kidnapped the baby, Mutungambera told Mr Finsin she desperately wanted a baby.
Mashonaland West provincial police spokesperson Inspector Clemence Mabgweazara has urged mothers to desist from leaving their children in the custody of strangers as some of the desperate women were targeting mothers, particularly at hospitals.
“Some can even travel from as far as Masvingo or Mutare to execute such missions. Others do it to save their marriages while in some cases the children are found dead with some parts removed for the purposes of juju. We urge mothers to take extreme caution when dealing with strangers.
“However, as police we will not just sit and watch. We will always make sure the law takes its course.”
Childcare specialists say failure to conceive among women is one the major drivers of such cases.
They argued that there is need for education and awareness to ensure the situation is accepted as natural among married people.