A woman from Chivi has been charged to court after she was caught hiding a one-day old baby she stole in her bag. She appeared in court last week.
The incident happened at the Berejena Hospital, Zimbabwe.
It was gathered that Rester Mapombwa (31) stole the baby and placed it in a bag when she sneaked into the maternity ward at the hospital. The baby belonged to Tatenda Nhinga (18) of Masvingise Village under Headman Makamure in Chief Nemauzhe’s area.
Giving reason in court why she stole the baby, Mapombwa said she had lied to her husband that she was pregnant and as a first wife, she wanted to please her husband so that he would give her some money for the upkeep of the child, Masvingo Mirror reports.
As the first wife, she was not getting any attention from the husband. she had lied she was pregnant to make her husband give her little attention. But, the husband preferred to spend more time with the second wife. This infuriated Mapombwa.
So, she went to the maternity to steal the baby as the husband was now expecting her baby to be born. In a bid to cover up her lies, on April 26, 2016 at 1pm, Mapombwa went to the maternity ward masquerading as a relative to one of the mothers in the ward.
She then gained entry and in a bid to divert the attention of the mothers from their babies she lied to the women in the ward that their clothes had fallen from the washing line. When all the women had left the ward, she took a baby belonging to Nhinga and went away unnoticed.
However, her luck ran out after the baby’s mother raised alarm alerting hospital officials who found the baby in Mapombwa’s bag and was arrested. Nixon Chamisa prosecuted.
Mapombwa was sentenced to three-years imprisonment.
