By Lebogang Seale
Mokgadi Moyo had been fast asleep in her hospital bed when she was awakened by a commotion in the maternity ward.
Some fellow patients were screaming, calling out her name, while loud footsteps reverberated along the corridor leading to the ward.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a woman drag her two-day-old baby from their bed, throw her on the floor and start kicking her.
In shock, she jumped out of her bed and screamed hysterically, yelling at the woman to stop assaulting her baby.
A nurse managed to drag the woman from the baby and rushed it for medical attention.
But it was too late. Her baby, Kamogelo, was certified dead a few minutes later.
The gruesome murder took place at Yusuf Dadoo Hospital in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, last week.
On Tuesday, Moyo, 34, from Dobsonville, Soweto, told The Star: "I fell asleep just after 10pm. After 2am, I was awakened by people screaming. 'Mokgadi wake up!, wake up!', they shouted. When I woke up, I saw this woman who was sleeping in a bed next to mine dragging my child from the bed. She threw her on the floor and started kicking her," Moyo said.
Battling to hold back tears, she continued: "A nurse came rushing forward and tried to pull her away from the baby, but she continued kicking the baby. As she kicked my baby, she rolled on the floor. The nurse grabbed the baby and took her to another room.
"They tried to call a doctor, who arrived 30 minutes later. After a few minutes, they told me that my baby was dead."
Moyo said that a day before the tragedy, she had been chatting to the woman, who, like her, had given birth by caesarean.
"The woman gave birth a day before I did. After I had given birth, we spoke about how nice it is to finally be free of labour pains and how lovely it is to have a baby, especially a baby you have planned for," she said, adding that no one expected that the woman would do what she did.
However, Moyo said she had some misgivings about the woman when, a day before the tragedy, she had asked to be discharged from the hospital, saying she would return frequently to the hospital to see her baby. "The nurses refused to discharge her... they gave her a sleeping injection but she woke up later in the evening when the day staff had left," Moyo said.
Moyo accused the hospital of negligence, saying: "They left without telling their colleagues that this woman could not be trusted. Were they more concerned about her baby than other people's? My child is dead but hers is safe and well now. It's unacceptable. I want my baby back. I'm going to sue them for this. What upsets me most is that ever since I was discharged from hospital, no one has bothered to call me."
Moyo, who has a 14-year-old daughter, said she felt as if the child was her first, especially because her husband Bobby had never had a child.
"We budgeted for the baby and were planning great things for her... I miss my child a lot, even though she was still very young.
"When I'm asleep at night, it's as if I can feel her at my side. Then I wake up, sit on my bed and cry," she said.
Meanwhile the woman accused of the murder will make her second appearance at the Krugersdorp Magistrate's Court on Monday after the case was postponed for further investigations, according to Milica Bezuidenhout, spokesperson for the West Rand police.