People of Ndirande Township in Blantyre were on Monday
shocked to find remains of a newborn buried underground in the bedroom of a house.
The remains were found wrapped in a black plastic bag in a makeshift grave which had apparently been dug up in one of the bedrooms in the house.
One of the women at the scene, Kuyukaya Ntalika, said they were cleaning up the house when they discovered the remains.
“I was called by my friend who wanted to move into the house to come and help her sweep [the housre] before she moved in. In the course of the exercise, I stepped on this mound of soil in which my foot sunk. That is when I saw something black,” said Ntalika.
She said she called her friend who came with a flashlight into the room.
“Together, we dug up the mound to see what was hidden underneath,” she explained.
She said people in the neighbourhood flocked to the house to see what had happened. They suspected it was a woman who had once inhabited the house (name withheld) who had buried the baby.
Village Head Matope of the area said the women notified him and he rushed to the scene.
Said the chief: “We have called our chairperson who deals with security issues and we have asked him to report the matter to police.”
According to Ntalika, the suspect was pregnant last year but the pregnancy had suddenly vanished in September.
“When she was asked about the disappearance of her pregnancy, the suspect said she had not been pregnant but had water in her stomach which had been pumped out at the hospital. When we told her that we would call the police and chief Matope, the woman disappeared and has not been seen since,” Ntalika explained. n
