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baby safe with aunt

FAMILY CARE: Sowetan Staff meet Baby Owami who has been reunited with her family one month after her mother disappeared and left her in the care of her friend in Orange Farm. Pic. Vathiswa Ruselo. 17/06/08. © Sowetan.
FAMILY CARE: Sowetan Staff meet Baby Owami who has been reunited with her family one month after her mother disappeared and left her in the care of her friend in Orange Farm. Pic. Vathiswa Ruselo. 17/06/08. © Sowetan.

Pertunia Ratsatsi

Pertunia Ratsatsi

The nine-month-old baby who was dumped twice by her gambling addicted mother is now in the warm arms of her mother's family from the Eastern Cape, thanks to Sowetan.

The baby's aunt, who did not want to be named, was excited when a Sowetan team took her to her sister's child in Driezick, Orange Farm.

She had travelled from King William's Town to Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Thrilled that the baby was still in good health, she boarded a bus back to the Eastern Cape the next day.

She promised that the baby will now be well taken care of.

"I am seeing her for the first time. I am happy that I am taking the baby to King William's Town because I know that she will be safe and happy there," she said.

The baby's mother, Nomvuyo Williams, 35, is a self-confessed gambling addict. She had left the baby with her friend Zoleka Nyengane in April.

Williams' second disappearance happened barely three months after Sowetan had exposed her for child neglect after she had left the baby with a helper. Williams was kicked out of her flat in Kempton Park and went to stay with Nyengane, where she left the baby and disappeared.

Sowetan highlighted the baby's plight and then arranged and paid for the Williams' family to travel from the Eastern Cape to Johannesburg to fetch the child.

Nyengane said: "I am going to miss that child but I am happy that she is going to stay with her family.

"I also feel bad because the child's relative did not even thank me for taking care of her. I owe a lot of people money I borrowed to provide for the baby because I am unemployed. My husband is in hospital," she said.

Williams made headlines in March when she left the baby with her domestic worker Vuyokazi Ngqoleka, 37, of Tembisa for more than two weeks.

She returned home after Sowetan broke the story. She confessed that she had been gambling at Gold Reef City.

Her child was taken by Tembisa welfare officers but was returned to her two days later. A tearful Williams promised to stop gambling, look for a job and take care of her baby.

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