11-Month-Old Who Was Left Alone At Home Found Dead In Dam, Mother Arrested

A woman in South Africa was arrested after the body of her infant son was found floating in a dam, four days after he went missing.

On Sunday, the mother, identified as 20-year-old Xola, left the 11-month-old baby alone at their home to visit her boyfriend. When she came back home the following morning, the infant was missing. The woman immediately filed a police report, following which a search was initiated for the child, local news outlet Daily Voice reported.

On Wednesday, the body of the infant was found floating in a dam close to their residence in Wallacedene. After the corpse was found, the mother was detained for questioning during which she claimed she had asked her friends to pick up the child from her residence while she was at her boyfriend’s home. It, however, remained unclear how the baby left the home.

The woman’s family members, however, feel she was lying.

"She went to her boyfriend's place, the biological father of the baby. She left him alone in her shack and she said her friends were supposed to take him, that makes no sense, we still need to ask her the truth and she is the only one who knows it," the woman’s sister said, Daily Voice reported.

Some community members also suspect the woman of killing the child.

"People are very upset with her and they accused her of killing her own child. Everyone is finding this suspicious because she said she left her baby alone and told her friends to fetch him. But the friends are saying something different so no one knows what really happened to the child," Leletu Somtsewu, a community member, told the outlet.

The accused remained in custody as of Thursday on murder and child neglect charges. She was scheduled to appear in court Friday, News 24 reported.

Meanwhile, the police said they were investigating the circumstances and did not reveal additional information.

"Due to the sensitive nature of our investigation, we will refrain from releasing more information at this stage. Kindly be advised that the body of a baby was found at a dam in Wallacedene this afternoon. At this stage our detectives are in the process to determine the circumstances," police spokesman Colonel Andrè Traut said.