Horror death of Kayalethu infant

A gruesome discovery was made when the body of a baby was found at a house at eDameni, Khayalethu on Friday 13 July.

It is believed the baby was discovered by a child who saw the infant outside their residence being dragged by a dog and informed his mother, who then immediately alerted the police.

Subsequent to the incident, the Knysna detective branch is investigation an inquest docket.

Police to investigate

Knysna police spokesperson Sergeant Chris Spies said, “The circumstances surrounding this incident are still being investigated. A postmortem to determine the cause of death will be conducted later this week.”

He said no murder case had been opened. “We can only confirm at this stage that a woman was questioned, but no one was arrested in connection with this matter.”

A community leader, who only identified himself as “General”, said that after the discovery was made, elderly women from the area were called in to identify the mother of the child. They brought a number of women to the house for questioning. Community ‘finds’ the mother

One of the elderly women, Nolandele Sikali, was on the scene and noticed that one woman seemed disinterested and sat down. “When we called her to examine her she was shaking. We opened her shirt and pressed her breasts. Breast milk came out… Breast milk only comes out after you have given birth. We stripped her naked and saw that she had indeed given birth.”

Sikali said the woman denied that the baby was hers and even went so far as saying that she was never pregnant while everyone knew she had been with child. “She and my daughter got pregnant around the same time. The baby must be around seven months, because it is a fully developed, with hair and everything.”

She said the incident left them traumatised. “When the baby was found it had one leg, one arm and her eyes were eaten out. We are now haunted by what we saw and we cannot pretend it never happened.”

Knysna-Plett Herald spoke to this woman accused of being the mother. She denied having anything to do with the baby and went on to say, “There is nothing that links me to that baby.

“All these people who are accusing me need to come with evidence that binds me to the baby and should they not come forth with it, I want to know all their names and I will sue them for tarnishing my name. I will sue the paper as well if it publishes this story.”