A one-month-old baby allegedly stolen near Orkney has been found in the Free State, North West police said on Saturday.
The baby’s mother identified her at a Parys hospital where she had been taken after allegedly being found abandoned, said spokesperson Superintendent Louis Jacobs.
Police received information on Saturday morning that the baby girl was possibly in Parys.
The baby was allegedly stolen after she was kidnapped with her 20-year-old mother by a female minibus-taxi driver on Thursday, Jacobs said.
The mother asked to go to the Kanana clinic near Orkney, but the driver drove in a different direction, pointed a firearm at her and blindfolded her, Jacobs said. They were then driven to a house where the mother was tied to a chair and the driver left with the baby.
”Twenty minutes later she returned with no child,” said Jacobs.
The mother was put in the taxi again and dropped off in the veld between Johannesburg and Kanana.
Police are investigating cases of child stealing, kidnapping and pointing a firearm.
”If members of the public see a maroon taxi with tinted windows being driven by a woman, we ask that they do communicate that information to the Kanana police,” Jacobs said. — Sapa