The Ikageng police are investigating the concealment of a birth after a couple was found with a baby in a plastic bag in Marikana Promosa at about 22:15 last Wednesday.
According to WO Ishmael Mohutsiwa, Ikageng SAPS spokesperson, the police entered the couple’s home and discovered blood on the floor and a pair of scissors on the bed. Their shocking discovery prompted the girlfriend to go to the drawer and come back with a black plastic bag containing the dead baby and another plastic bag with the placenta.
‘The ERMS personnel examined the girlfriend and found that she had given birth. She was taken to the hospital and the boyfriend was arrested,’ he said.
Mohutsiwa says a concerned resident had alerted the police and had accompanied them to the home. It was he who knocked on the door and asked them to open.
‘The couple refused, saying that they were sleeping but the neighbour opened the door and the police entered the premises. When the officer asked them whether the girlfriend had given birth, they denied it. It was only when they inspected the place that they noticed the blood on the floor.’
This case follows another concealment of birth investigation – of a two-week-old baby at the Promosa dumping site on 7 December last year.
At the time, Sgt Kelebogile Trom, the Ikageng police spokesperson, reported that the worker at a dumping site had shown the police a baby on the ground with its little hand lying next to it.
‘On 27 June last year, a passer-by discovered a fully developed baby girl in the veld in Promosa. At that time, the police reported that the little body, with the umbilical cord still attached, was in an orange plastic bag lying next to a pink, blood-stained nightdress,’ reported Trom. In 2016, the Herald reported on two concealment-of-birth cases. One was in Promosa on 6 August and the other was a foetus that was discovered in Greenfield, a few kilometres from Promosa, on 14 January.
