OSHAKATI – The Namibian Police are looking for the relatives of an infant boy, who is suspected to have been abandoned by his mother at the Oshakati Intermediate Hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

Oshana police spokesperson Thomas Aiyambo said the one-year-old boy was discovered by the gender-based violence unit police officers stationed at the hospital. 

The officers noticed that the infant had been left on his own with his baby bag after all other patients had been assisted.

It is believed that the boy was intentionally dumped because the person who left him there did not leave any form of identification that can be used to trace the child back to his mother or other relatives. There was only his health passport, but its covers had been strategically removed. 

The healthy boy is currently under the care of the hospital personnel.

Meanwhile, Namibian Police data show that over the past six years, more than 234 babies were abandoned, dumped or died as a result of concealment of birth by their mothers countrywide. 

Police dockets were opened in the known cases, and several mothers have been arrested and charged with cases ranging from murder, attempted murder, concealment of birth and others. 

The police have advised women not to dump babies anymore, but to leave them at a safe zone like a hospital, relatives’ houses, the police department, or other marked areas.

The Namibian government has expressed optimism about a law passed last year, allowing mothers to drop off newborns with the police or at a safe house without facing prosecution.

- vkaapanda@nepc.com.na

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