The mother of a two-month-old baby who was snatched away from her while she went shopping at a local supermarket in Bishop Lavis, on the Cape Flats, is appealing for the safe return of her child.
The 41-year-old, Franscis Meniers, says a woman approached her and asked to see baby Kai-Isha and she agreed.
She says she subsequently left the stranger with the baby and two of her siblings, aged two and ten years old, and went inside the store. When she came out. the infant was gone with the stranger.
The suspected baby snatcher allegedly offered the ten-year-old child R10 to go and buy sweets and used the opportunity to run away with the baby.
Meniers says she is to blame.
“I feel awkward because as a mother, I have to be blamed because why? The first thing to say is where were you? Why did you leave a two-month baby with some strangers?” says the mother.
“Any human that’s what they could ask them. It is painful yes, sometimes I have to express myself like my normal self, people don’t know how I do feel inside. We want our child back she did not ask to go missing.”