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Lumbidzani Nleya (right) with a member of the community

Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
TWO siblings strangled their newborn babies and then dumped them in a pit latrine of a secondary school, Matabeleland South police said yesterday. Police, helped by villagers in Tokwana, Bulilima district, on Sunday dug up the bodies of the two infants born on December 17 and January 7.

In difficult conditions, officers retrieved two tiny bodies – one wrapped in a plastic bag and another covered in a blood-stained cloth and newspaper.

Prosecutors in Plumtree are preparing to charge Lumbidzani Nleya, 23, and Batanani Nleya, 21, with concealment of birth and dumping babies.

Lumbidzani, who has a three-year-old daughter, told investigators that she gave birth prematurely on December 17 and threw the stillborn baby’s remains down a Blair toilet at Tokwana Secondary School, with the help of her elder sister, who lives in Gwanda.

Police sources close to the investigation said she also confessed to having assisted her younger sister, Batanani, who is a mother to a two-year-old boy, to dispose of her baby as well a few weeks later.

Batanani, meanwhile, has also told investigators that she gave birth prematurely on January 7 at around 10AM and draped it in a plastic bag.

“Batanani said she surrendered the baby to Lumbidzani who told her that she had disposed of her own baby at the school toilets. She said Lumbidzani dumped her baby at around 8PM on the same day,” a police source said.

The siblings’ uncle, Tshakalisa Nleya, blew the whistle after noticing that his nieces were no longer pregnant, but had no babies either.
Nleya, who was angry that his nieces were pregnant a second time out of wedlock, told Chronicle: “I questioned them about their pregnancies as I was not pleased because they have a child each but they’re not married.

“They were very cagey and did not reveal the men responsible for the pregnancies.”
After learning that his nieces were no longer pregnant, and they could not account for the babies, Nleya said village leaders and senior women put the pair under intense questioning until they admitted to disposing of the bodies in a Blair toilet.

Inspector Philisani Ndebele of Matabeleland South police said last night: “We’re investigating a case of two female adults from Tokwana area in Bulilima District who gave birth and disposed of the bodies in a latrine at a local school.

“They have been arrested and are assisting the police with investigations.”