A woman, 20, is expected to appear in court soon in connection with a newborn found in a dustbin. Picture: Pexels
An East London woman has been arrested after the body of a newborn baby was found in a dustbin at one of the city’s university student residences.
Eastern Cape police spokesperson Warrant Officer Majola Nkohli said the 20-year-old woman was arrested and faces a charge of concealment of birth.
The body of the newborn was discovered on Friday.
“The circumstances surrounding the incident are forming part of the investigation. She is due to appear in court soon.”
It in unclear at this stage if the woman is a student at the university.
In a landmark sentence in KwaZulu-Natal, a woman who dumped her newborn baby in a pit latrine was sentenced to three years imprisonment in September 2020.
The mother of three, who was not named to protect the identity of her minor children, said she was ashamed to have gotten pregnant again out of wedlock.
The woman pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court.
The rescue of the child in February 2019, went viral on social media.
It took emergency workers almost four hours to rescue the child from the pit latrine.
The woman said she was too embarrassed to tell her family that she was pregnant for the third time out of wedlock, given the circumstances, and concealed the pregnancy from her family.
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