Mtubatuba woman wants justice following false kidnap accusation
A woman who was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping a six-day-old infant in Mtubatuba in Mfekayi, KwaZulu-Natal, wants justice.
Thulisile Mfekayi also wants the child’s family to apologise for the pain and humiliation they have caused her.
She is accusing the child’s father of previously threating to burn her house down.
The boy, Nhlakanipho Gumede, is now nine years old and was found in Daveyton’s Emaphupheni section, in Johannesburg last year.
Mfekayi says Gumede’s parents must apologise to the Chief and the Mkhwanazi dynasty for their actions.
“This issue traumatised me and now that the child has been found – they haven’t even said anything to me. They hunted me down and even tried hacking me despite my insistence that I had nothing to do with their child’s disappearance. They even involved the police. I never ran away because I knew I was innocent,” she says.
The child’s mother, Fikelephi Mpotshane, says they were desperate to find the child that they even confused things.
She says a community member who was assisting them with the search for their child had fingered Mfekayi.
However, when she did tell the police that Mfekayi was not the culprit.
She says Mfekayi is not the only one who was suspected of the kidnap.
Mpotshane says once the court case for the woman who is now in custody for the boy’s kidnap is finalised – her family will sit down and decide on how to handle the matter.
Law expert, Professor Xolani Zikhali, is advising Mfekayi to get a lawyer and sue the state for wrongful arrest.