Woman in court for dumping new-born baby in pit latrine

A WOMAN from the Ngwanyana area in Mangwe District has been hauled to the Plumtree Magistrates courts on allegations of dumped her new-born baby in a pit latrine after giving birth at home.

Sipho Ndlovu, 20, was charged with infanticide last Friday.

A Plumtree magistrate, Philimon Moyo, ordered the charges altered to concealment of birth after prosecutors failed to produce a medical report confirming the death of the infant or a post mortem report showing how the child died.

Moyo postponed Ndlovu's trial after advising prosecutors to put their papers in order over the missing evidence.

It is the state's case that Ndlovu allegedly gave birth at her home shortly after 9pm on April 13.

Prosecutors said Ndlovu's son witnessed the birth of the new-born baby. Neighbour Lovemore Dube who visited her the next morning also told investigators that he heard a baby crying in Ndlovu's bedroom, but she had claimed that it was a visiting relative's child.

Later on April 14, Ndlovu is alleged to have left home after telling her son she was going to the local clinic to have the baby checked and register the birth.

Instead, prosecutors say she suffocated the baby, wrapped it with a cloth and plastic paper before proceeding to an unoccupied homestead in the village where she dumped the body inside a toilet.

Neighbours became suspicious when Ndlovu was seen without her baby bump or the child.

On April 25, a neighbour walking the ruins of the unoccupied homestead detected a strong smell coming from the toilet and on closer inspection found the decomposing remains of a baby leading to Ndlovu's arrest.