The ouma of an 11-month-old baby who was found dead in sewage water in Wallacedene says her daughter is a problem child but not a killer.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Voice, granny Nowethu Mafentile, 46, said her daughter Xola would regularly leave her baby Akhimbali with relatives and go jol with her friends.
Xola had reported her baby missing last Monday after she returned from her ex-boyfriend’s home.
She had told police that she asked her friends to look after him during the night.
His tiny body was found close to his home on Wednesday by community members who helped search for him.
Xola was taken into custody and the court granted her bail of R500 on Friday.
The 20-year-old mom moved out of her mother’s place last year.
But whenever she wanted to go out with her friends, she would leave the baby with family, Nowethu says.
“If she had left her baby with us on that day as she usually did, my grandchild would still be alive. This could have been avoided, and she would not have been arrested.”
Sitting in the corridors of the Blue Downs Magistrates’ Court on Friday, the devastated ouma said she doesn’t believe her daughter is a murderer.
“Xola has never given me a reason to think she didn’t want or like her child.
“She was a bit lazy sometimes, but she took care of her child.
“My child is not a murderer, I believe other people are responsible (for his death),” she explains.
She says Xola was with her pals on Sunday night, 21 March, and they left the baby alone in her shack.
“Her friends accompanied her to the guy’s place, but they turned around somewhere.
“The friends were supposed to go back and get the child and keep him overnight.
“Xola was too far to have gone back to kill her baby and then dump him and then go back to the boyfriend.”
The ouma says Akhimbali’s biological father confirmed Xola was with him on 21 March.
“He said he didn’t even know that he had a child,” explains Nowethu.
“He told me that he had heard Xola was pregnant with his child, she hid that from him and she also never revealed to us who the father of her baby is.
“And that Sunday was the first time they saw each other in a year.”
Xola is facing charges of murder and child neglect.
She spent two nights in police custody and was transported to Pollsmoor Prison on Friday despite being granted bail because her family could not afford the cost.
The court granted her bail because she does not have any previous convictions or warrants for her arrest or pending cases.
Xola is expected back in court on 8 June.