13-year-old Natalie Gurumani went missing from police
custody on the 15th of March and has not been seen since.
Besides herself with grief, Natalie’s mother, Charity
Gurumani, who re-entered the country legally on the 13th of March to look for
her child, has appealed to the public to help her find the missing girl.
The teenager was taken away by the police from Gurumani’s
aunt, Janet Kabelo, where she was left when her mother went job-hunting but
never returned.
It later turned out Gurumani was arrested by the police and
deported back to her home country, Zimbabwe, for unlawfully remaining in
Botswana.
While Gurumani was still sorting out her passport in
Zimbabwe, social workers and the police took her daughter from Kabelo to place
her in a secret safe shelter.
A month later, Gurumani arrived back in Botswana and Kabelo
took her to the police station so they could get the daughter back but, to
their surprise and horror, the girl was missing and the mother was charged with
Child Negligence and detained.
Speaking to The Voice, Kabelo said when social workers took
the child, they had brought a court order and told her they were taking the
girl to a secret and safe place for security reasons.
“When I took Charity to the police to fetch the child, the
investigating officers told me they were taking her for a DNA test to prove
that she was indeed the mother of the child, but instead they detained her. I
was surprised when she appeared in court and I heard the investigating officer
saying the child had gone missing from their secret place. The social worker
called me to her office last week Friday to tell me officially that the child
was lost. Now I blame myself for all this because had I not mentioned that
Charity had left a minor child behind, police would not have taken her away
from me. Charity had told me she lost her phone when she was deported and she
did not have my number. She took long to return because she was still fixing
her passport issues in Zimbabwe,” said the distraught aunt.
When reached for comment, Officer Commanding N03, Theriso
Thatayotlhe, confirmed that Natalie was missing and went further to reveal that
she was not the only child to disappear from the safe centre.
He said another child, also aged 13, also went missing
around 9pm on the 15th of March and the case was reported the following day
around 2pm at Tlokweng Police Station.
“I can confirm that through the help of the Zimbabwean
police, we received a call that the other girl was seen at Plumtree border post
and her father has since identified her. We will be relying on them to assist
with the investigations. For now, we do not know where the other child is,”
said Thatayotlhe. The Voice
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