WINDHOEK – Traditional beliefs and ignorance are what led to a dog preying on a stillborn baby at Mix settlement some 20 kilometres north of Windhoek.
Inspector Slogan Matheus of the Namibian Police Force’s Public Relations Division last week confirmed that no arrests were made in the case of a dumped foetus that was discovered being pulled by a dog at the settlement two weeks ago.
“Investigations are at an advanced stage. Samples were taken from a possible suspect and they were sent for forensic examination. Only when we have the results can we act further,” said Matheus. New Era understands the baby’s head was found separated from the rest of the body.
When New Era visited the settlement last week Wednesday, the mother of the stillborn baby, a 17-year-old who hails from Kavango Region, appeared traumatised. She was mum when asked to share the circumstances that led to her baby being preyed on by a dog.
The teenager’s boyfriend, a 24-year-old who works for a Chinese company shared that the baby was born dead. “When the baby was born it was already dead. The baby’s skin peeled off every time that we touched it,” said the young man who for fear of victimisation asked that his identity not be revealed.
He explained that his girlfriend who was pregnant at the time experienced severe labour pains on the night of March 9 at around 20H00.
“We walked to the road to look for transport but we did not get any,” explained the young man. He said they decided to go back to their shack to deliver their baby at home after the pains worsened.
“Along the way my girlfriend told me that she could feel that the baby was coming,” explained the man. He said he assisted his girlfriend to give birth not far from the road.
“I caught the baby. But I could see that the skin peeled every time we touched it. I phoned my mother-in-law in Rundu to explain the situation. She told us that the baby was dead and that if there is an anthill nearby we should bury it there. In our culture if a baby dies the same day that it is born we have to bury it the same day,” said the man who appeared emotional. The Grade 6 dropout explained that his mother-in-law advised them to bury the baby in a hole at a river.
“I don’t know if it was a girl or boy because it was too small,” said the man when asked if he knew the baby’s gender.
“We misunderstood the instructions. We did not dig the hole as we were instructed to do by my mother-in-law. We just covered the baby and put it in the riverbed. We did not clearly understand what my mother-in-law told us. We would have dug the hole to bury the baby if we understood clearly what she meant,” said the man.
“I am not feeling well as that was not the first time that my baby died. In 2013 my girlfriend gave birth to a girl who died three days later,” said the young man.