A fisherman walking on the beach near Harbour Island at the weekend made a gruesome discovery on Saturday evening.
Captain Belinda Rossouw of the Khayelitsha Police Cluster Inquest Unit said the man picked up a plastic bag around 18:00 on Saturday 2 April.
“The Broadlands Park fisherman said he thought it was a bag of fish he could possibly use as bait, so he inspected it,” she said.
“But when he opened the bag, he realised it was the body of a newborn baby in the bag. According to the young man, the little boy was covered in blood and still had an umbilical cord attached to him.”
He immediately notified police of his find.
Police say this latest incident in Gordon’s Bay is an isolated incident. But the Helderberg has been riddled with such incidents in the past.
In December last year, the bodies of two foetuses were found in the space of one week in the same street in Asanda Village, Lwandle (“More babies dumped”, DistrictMail, 10 December 2015).
The body of a newborn baby was also found on an illegal dump in Lwandle last August (“Newborn found at dump”, DistrictMail, 13 August 2015).
Rossouw appeals to anyone with possible information on the baby’s mother to come forward with the information by contacting her on 021 857 7134.
Pregnant women who do not want their babies are again reminded of the organisation where the babies can be dropped off anonymously.
The Baby Saver was started in 2014 and is situated at Choices, a crisis centre for pregnant women, in Schapenberg Road, Somerset West. A safe has been built into a wall at Choices, which is fitted with an alarm that alerts the appointed individuals.
“What happened is very sad,” says Sandy Immelman, one of the women involved with the project. “We really want people to make use of the safe in these cases.”
