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MOTHER STRANGLES, KILLS, DUMPS NEWBORN

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MANZINI - Yet another woman will face the wrath of the law after being arrested for allegedly strangulating to death her day-old baby in front of her other children.


She is suspected to have kept the corpse of the infant in the house for 24 hours prior to disposing it in a pit latrine.
This is one of many other incidents where women have been accused of murdering their own children.


The most recent one is that of a mother who is alleged to have slit the throat of her toddler while under the influence of alcohol about two weeks ago.
In the current incident, tenants in a complex at New Village are still realing from shock after it was discovered that a pregnant woman gave birth and allegedly throttled the baby to death about 24 hours after delivery.


The woman, Temaswati Lindiwe Dlamini (28) of Nsingweni, has since been arrested by the police.


Submitted


Information gathered from statements submitted in court was that the accused person allegedly did not want the child and had on several occasions allegedly tried to terminate the pregnancy but failed.


Dlamini revealed in statements submitted in court that she was in labour for more than 12 hours while inside her flat with her two other children, aged four and two. She admitted in the statements that she allegedly strangled her newborn to death and in the presence of the two minors during the early hours about a week ago.


“Benginebantfwabami lababili, ngatsi nangicala kuhelwa, ngabeleka nga 1am ngamukhama waze wafa,” she said; loosely translated; ‘I was with my two children when I experienced labour pains, I then gave birth to the baby and strangled it to death’.
Dlamini gave birth in her flat situated at New Village without the assistance of a health practitioner.


She also revealed in her statement that after allegedly killing the newborn, she put the corpse of the newborn into plastic bags. The accused person disclosed that she placed the corpse beside her on the bed and slept until the morning.


“I woke up and went to the hospital to get my medication and returned hours later. The baby was still on the bed and again I spent another night with it, until the following morning. I then took the corpse and went to the pit latrine and dumped it there, without anyone noticing,” Dlamini alleged in her statements.


The accused person, who is employed at the Matsapha Industrial Sites, said after dumping the corpse inside the pit latrine, she proceeded to work.
She said when she returned home at around 3pm on the same day, her landlord questioned her about the baby and she informed him that she had suffered a miscarriage.


“My landlord pitied me and to my surprise, he was not shocked. In the evening, the police came to the compound and upon seeing them I escaped, leaving my two children in the house,” the accused person also said.


The police are said to have failed to apprehend the suspect after getting wind of the murder.
Dlamini, who was on the run for five days, was eventually arrested at her parental home at Nsingweni. When she was caught, she disclosed to the police that the baby had been dumped inside the pit latrine. The accused person later led the team of police officers to the scene and the corpse was retrieved.


Medical doctors at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital certified the baby dead upon arrival on the same day. “While we deal with tragedies everyday, we were devastated by the murder incident,” the staff at the RFM Hospital said.


Arrested


The accused person was arrested and charged with murder. It was later discovered that she had allegedly neglected and exposed her two other minors to danger by locking them in the house during the period when she had escaped to her parental home, as she had allegedly left them alone inside the flat.
As such, Dlamini was further charged with another offence of Contravening the Child Protection and Welfare Act where it was disclosed that she abandoned the two minors, *Zipho (4) and *Lulu (2) and left them without supervision inside the house.


 The charge sheet states that the accused person (allegedly) killed her newborn baby by strangulating it to death. 
Yesterday, the suspect made a court appearance before Magistrate Lucia Lukhele.


When asked if she would conduct her own defence or hire the services of an attorney, Dlamini said she would speak for herself during trial.
She was remanded in custody until August 28, 2019, pending her committal to the High Court.
Meanwhile, her two minors have been placed in a safe house by the Matsapha police.
*Not real names

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