Woman arrested for kidnapping 7-year-old schoolgirl

A 41-year-old woman has been arrested for kidnapping a seven-year-old girl on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast on Thursday.

According to police, the woman was arrested near the border of Lesotho after she had kidnapped the child while she was playing at her school in Sundumbili on Wednesday.

“The grade 1 pupil was kidnapped while playing with her friends at school in Sundumbili on November 12 at 10.15am by the woman, who pretended to be her aunt. It is alleged that the woman first requested permission from the school to take the child to buy clothes and when the school refused, she camped outside the school premises until break time,” said police spokesperson Col Thembeka Mbele.

A case of kidnapping was opened after the girl's teacher noticed that she did not come back to class after the break. The girl's mother was called and she said that she did not know the woman.

The woman was arrested at a taxi rank in Matatiele, in the Eastern Cape, on Thursday evening.

“Police proceeded to a taxi rank where the woman was seen alighting from the taxi without the missing girl. She was questioned about her whereabouts and agreed to show the team where she kept her. They proceeded to Matatiele where the child was found with the woman’s grandmother,” said Mbele.

The girl was taken to hospital for an examination and has since been reunited with her family.

The woman is to appear in the Nyoni magistrate's court on Monday.