Baby taken from bed as mom showers

IT HAS been two weeks since a young woman last saw her 11month-old daughter, who was snatched from a Durban shelter while she showered.

Pamela Tekethwane had left Snenhlanhla sleeping on a bed at the shelter on Dr Yusuf Dadoo Street and when she returned the child was gone.

“She was wearing a pink hooded jacket and grey corduroy pants. When I walked out of the bathroom she wasn’t on the bed; I never imagined that someone could have taken her,” she said.

Tekethwane, originally from umthatha, said she and her boyfriend, the child’s father, occasionally stayed at this shelter. When she discovered that Snenhlanhla had disappeared, she searched the street frantically.

“I walked around the shelter looking for her, thinking that maybe someone I know had taken her but no one had seen her,” she said.

She said she had asked the security guard at the door if he had seen anyone walk out with a baby but she was told no one had left with her child.

“I stood out on the street, looking around hoping I would see someone carrying her.”

Tekethwane said all she wanted was her child back safe. On Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, while everyone was celebrating, she had been miserable. “I reported Snenhlanhla’s disappearance but the police didn’t take me seri- ously… they wondered how a child could just disappear.”

Tekethwane said that the day after her child went missing, she had taken a picture of the child to the police station in Dr Yusuf Dadoo Street and reported her missing.

Police spokesman Captain Khephu Ndlovu said police were investigating a missing person’s case.

Anyone with information about the child’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Durban Central police.