Masoka Dube

Masoka Dube

Mpumalanga police are baffled after a three-month-old baby girl was mutilated while sleeping with her mother.

According to the police, someone apparently gained entry into the shack in which Sibongile Khoza, 29, and her baby were sleeping on Saturday night.

The child's nose, half an ear, and the forehead skin were removed.

Khoza woke up to find her baby dead and mutilated.

Police spokesman Constable Jabulile Ndubane said Khoza told them that she was fast asleep in her shack with her daughter when she heard a noise which she thought was caused by rats.

"When she woke up to investigate she found that her child was dead and had been mutilated," Ndubane said.

Ndubane said the police and the community were shocked by this mysterious murder.

"The woman told us that the child did not cry," he said.

"She said that the door was locked and the windows were shut as she had left them when she went to sleep.

"We are going to investigate her because she was the only person who was with the child during the gruesome finding.

"The postmortem revealed that the child's missing parts had been cut using a sharp object," Ndubane said.

He said the baby's missing parts were not found inside the shack where she had been sleeping with her mother.