Mom pleads for stolen baby’s return

“We beg you to please return our baby alive. We will lay criminal charges against you. We are devastated. There is huge void in my life.”

This is the impassioned plea of Anna Sekota; a mother whose newborn baby boy, one of twins, was stolen from her two hours after their birth at the Thusanong Hospital in Odendaalsrus last week Friday.

Police spokesperson, Captain Stephen Thakeng, said the baby snatcher had pretended to be a pregnant nursing student practicing at the hospital when she entered the maternity ward and asked the new mothers which one of them had delivered twins.

“When she learned that Sekota had delivered a boy and a girl, she told her she had been asked by a nurse to fetch the boy. She claimed a doctor wanted to compare her boy with another baby boy who had a breathing problem,” explained Thakeng.

An unsuspecting Sekota duly complied and gave the woman her baby. It was only when a nurse came to discharge her two hours later that she realised she had lost her baby.

According to Thakeng, there are nursing students at the hospital, but none of them worked on Fridays.

“The suspect is between 15 and 20 years old and about 1.55 metres tall. She weighs about 70 kg and has acne scarring on her face. She was wearing blue pants and a blue jacket with a pink towel wrapped around her body, white woolen cap and cream-colored winter gloves,” said Thakeng.