In the pre-dawn darkness on Saturday, an eight-month-old Cape Town girl was snatched from her parents' bed, raped, sodomised and left bleeding in the street.
The sheer horror of grown men raping a defenceless infant, which shocked the world when it happened to nine-month Baby Tshepang near Upington earlier this month, has now become a reality in the Mother City.
The baby's mother, Sarah, wept uncontrollably on Saturday, barely able to speak.
The infant is to be operated on at Tygerberg Hospital. The extent of her internal injuries were unknown late on Saturday.
'What pain is she going through?' The baby was discovered in Clare Street, Connaught, near Parow, at 3.40am.
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The three people who found her wrapped her in a jacket and took her to Ravensmead police station, where police alerted the Cravenby Community Centre.
There, Maliga Naidoo of the community centre examined her and discovered that she had been raped and sodomised. Naidoo had the child rushed to hospital.
The child's parents sat together on a couch at home on Saturday, the pain of their daughter's ordeal visibly cutting into their hearts as the shock sank in.
Sarah, whose surname is being withheld to protect the identity of her baby, wept in anguish.
Barely 50m away from the safety of her home "What pain is she going through? She can't say 'Mom, it hurts,' because she can't speak yet."
Dozens of neighbours gathered outside their door, venting their anger with threats to commit murder should the child's rapist or rapists become known to them.
"They are animals," a family member said, shaking, barely able to contain his rage.
Sarah and her husband, Wayne, could still not believe how their little girl could have been stolen from their bed.
Sarah had returned from work at a factory at 11pm, dead tired. She and Wayne went to bed about an
hour later.
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