Pretoria – A 24-year-old woman was scheduled to appear in the Middelburg Magistrate’s Court, Mpumalanga, on Monday, after she allegedly murdered her three-month-old daughter on Friday evening following an argument with the child’s father, police said.
The woman allegedly visited the father at the farm where he works but he refused to let her in, leading her to threaten to kill the infant, according to Mpumalanga police spokesman Brigadier Leonard Hlathi.
The woman then threw the infant on the ground.
“The matter was then reported to the police. When they arrived with paramedics, the child was certified dead. Police opened a murder case and immediately arrested the suspect,” said Hlathi.
“The investigation by the police has since revealed that the woman is originally from Zimbabwe and she is not in possession of legal documents to be in South Africa, hence a charge of contravention of the Immigration Act has been added to the murder charge.”
Acting provincial commissioner Major General Thulani Phahla condemned the incident as inhumane and appealed to parents to avoid using children to settle “love triangle scores”.
In March, a 29-year-old woman was arrested in North West after she allegedly boiled her newborn boy and buried him in a shallow grave in Sunway about 20km outside Brits.
The mother later confided in her friend, who alerted the police about the incident.
– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa