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Sukulwenkosi Dube- Matutu, Plumtree Correspondent
A 19-YEAR-OLD has been sentenced to 36 months in jail for strangling her two week old baby after her boyfriend refused to provide for the child.

Precious Sibanda of Mayobodo in Mangwe District was convicted on her own plea of guilty to infanticide by Plumtree magistrate, Mr Gideon Ruvetsa.

She told the court that she resorted to killing her baby as she did not have the means to look after him.

“The father of my child works in South Africa and when I told him that our child was born he refused to support us. My mother passed away and I only stay with my father who is unemployed.

“I didn’t have any other option but to kill the baby Your Worship as I don’t have any means of raising the child. I already have another child and I’m struggling to fend for her. I was trying to avoid a repeat of the same problem,” he said.

Sibanda was sentenced to 36 months imprisonment and six months were suspended on condition that she does not within the next five years commit a similar offence.

Prosecuting, Mrs Rose Sibanda said the woman strangled her baby and then went to her aunt Ms Mavis Moyo to report that her son was not feeling well.

“On 15 October Sibanda was alone at her grandmother’s homestead and she strangled her two weeks old baby boy, Shelton Ncube. She covered him with a blanket and took him to her aunt where she reported that the baby was not feeling well and was breathing with difficulties.

“Ms Moyo opened the blanket and realised that the baby was dead. She took the baby’s body and inspected it with other villagers and they noticed that it had blood stains on the nose and clothes,” she said.

Mrs Sibanda said Ms Moyo and some family members became suspicious and they questioned Sibanda who later admitted to have strangled the baby with her hands.

The matter was reported to the police resulting in Sibanda’s arrest the following day. — @DubeMatutu.