Baby kidnapped in love triangle reunited with mom four months later

By Agencies

SOUTH AFRICA: The missing Springs baby who was abducted four months ago due to an alleged love triangle has been found in Nkangala, Mpumalanga.

She was reunited with her mother on Monday.

The now eight-month-old baby was kidnapped on 4 September, allegedly by two women who pretended to be nurses.

The two suspects were found in possession of another two abducted children, a three-year-old boy from Groblersdal and an eight-month-old girl who was taken in December.

Police were alerted to two women acting as nurses with three children.

The suspects, Grace Gumbo, 26, and Mercy Tsoko, 28, are facing charges of child abduction and contravention of the Immigration Act.

The infant’s mother said she was approached by two women who identified themselves as nurses and offered her a job to look after a three-year-old boy.

“I am an unemployed single mother struggling to provide for my daughter, so I immediately accepted the opportunity. We managed to build a relationship of trust during our conversations, and we shared our struggles,” she said.

“On 3 September one of the suspects told me that struggling unemployed mothers received food parcels and baby clothes at Far East Rand Hospital. She offered to go with me the following morning.”

The 30-year-old from Zimbabwe said the two women came as promised to accompany her but they offered to take the baby to the hospital themselves.

They told her to go instead to Johannesburg to buy baby clothes with a R400 voucher she would receive through an SMS from the hospital. They would later meet her in Johannesburg at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital.

The voucher never arrived. She became worried when hours passed and the suspects stopped taking her calls.

And then she received an SMS from one of the women telling her that she would never see her child again because she was dating the suspect’s sister’s husband.

No motive has been identified for the kidnapping of the other two children.

Mpumalanga police spokesperson Colonel Donald Mdluli said the children have been identified by their parents and they are now being kept until DNA test results prove that relationship.

A couple from Groblersdal has come forward claiming to be the parents of the three-year-old boy, but no information has been released regarding the parents of the eight-year-old girl.

The suspects will appear for their formal bail hearing before the Kriel Magistrate’s Court on 12 January.