adminSukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
A 24-YEAR-OLD Mangwe woman dumped her 10-month-old daughter at her neighbour’s homestead and allegedly ran off to her boyfriend in Tsholotsho.Brilliant Ndlovu of Nxele area requested her neighbour’s seven-year-old daughter to hold her baby, Gugulethu Mhlanga, while she carried some plates to her homestead.
Along the way she ditched the seven-year-old girl together with her baby and boarded a haulage truck.
The seven-year-old girl, after realising that the mother’s baby had disappeared, returned to her parents where she surrendered the baby. Ndlovu yesterday appeared before Plumtree magistrate, Gideon Ruvetsa, facing baby dumping charges.
Ndlovu, who tried to evade conviction, told the court that she had informed her husband that she wanted to leave as she had fallen in love with another man and he had ordered her to leave her 10-month-old baby behind.
“There was a man whom I was in love with before meeting my husband and we had a child together. I was still in love with him and he is the person I was going to when I dumped my baby. I dumped my baby because my husband told me to do so,” said the woman.
Her husband, Mathias Mhlanga, who had a different version of the incident, said his wife had always been unfaithful throughout their four-year-long marriage.
He denied having advised his wife to leave the baby behind as he was not aware that she had plans to elope.
Mhlanga said he had gone to church on the day that his wife abandoned their daughter.
He said he received a phone call from his neighbours alerting him that his wife had ditched their baby.
Mhlanga said he returned to his neighbourhood soon after getting the call to find his daughter with the neighbours.
He said his wife had on several occasions shown attributes of being unstable as she tried to commit suicide twice.
“We have been to the hospital on two separate occasions after my wife tried to kill herself by drinking rat poison. I always knew that she was unfaithful to me and that she was having an affair with a man in Tsholotsho but I did not know that she was planning on dumping our baby,” said Mhlanga.
He said his wife’s relatives told him where Ndlovu’s boyfriend stayed and he reported the matter to the police. He said his baby was being cared for by his aunt since his wife left.
Prosecuting, Jane Phiri said Ndlovu dumped her baby on November 23.
She said Ndlovu proceeded to a neighbour’s homestead to collect some plates. On her way back to her homestead she handed her baby over to her neighbour’s seven-year-old child.
Ndlovu left the seven-year-old child with her baby and fled to Tsholotsho where she was arrested on Monday.
She was found guilty of dumping her baby and was remanded in custody to tomorrow for sentencing.
Online Reporter