A Khayelitsha teenager has been re-united with her newborn baby boy in Cape Town after he was snatched by a woman pretending to be a social worker

Captain Frederick van Wyk said Xoliswe Magoda, 16, was visited by a woman on Tuesday who convinced her to go to home affairs with her three-week-old baby to apply for a birth certificate.

Magoda had to return home quickly to fetch something and the woman said she would look after the baby. When the mother returned, both the woman and her baby were gone.

Police tracked down the woman through her cellphone by pretending to be bank officials. They arrived at her address in Mfuleni and found her husband, who said his wife had gone to hospital to have a baby.

They eventually found her hiding in a wardrobe in her mother’s house nearby, holding onto the baby.

“It was confirmed that it was in fact the missing baby, Asenathi Magoda, and arrested the suspect on charges of abduction,” Van Wyk said.

The woman admitted that she had been pregnant but miscarried.