A two-year-old boy whose genitals were badly mutilated was left without medical attention for about an hour at the Kagiso police station on the West Rand, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.
Police said they could not transport him to a hospital because of service policy, and a member of the public took him there instead.
”When we got to the police station, we explained what happened. The child was in pain and I asked them to call an ambulance as he was bleeding between his legs,” said community leader Lydia Hlahane.
Kagiso police station spokesperson Bongani Sibiya said: ”According to our instructions we cannot transport [the] injured with our vehicles.”
The boy was in shock, but in a stable condition. Medical experts said it was a miracle that he survived.
Kagiso police have opened a case of attempted murder and the Independent Complaints Directorate will investigate the conduct at the police station.
Provincial police spokesperson Lungelo Dlamini said: ”We are going to investigate why they didn’t take the boy to the hospital [and] why they didn’t use their discretion looking at the circumstances.”
After a long search, the mother of the little boy, Meisi Majola (26), was found by police. She had earlier reported that he went missing from 2pm on Thursday. She said her son had disappeared from their home in Roodepoort on the West Rand. — Sapa