8-month-old baby assaulted by stepfather out of danger as 18-year-old mother is held in custody

By , K24 Digital
On Tue, 8 Jun, 2021 18:07 | 2 mins read
8-month old baby assaulted by stepfather out of harms way as 18-year-old mother is held in custody
8-month old baby assaulted by stepfather out of harms way. Photo/courtesy
8-month old baby assaulted by stepfather out of harms way as 18-year-old mother is held in custody

An 8-month-old child who was allegedly gravely battered by his step-father at Kiganjo village in Thika, Kiambu County is recovering at Thika Level Five Hospital.

The hospital superintendent Jesse Ngugi has told journalists that the male child might be released in two weeks upon complete recovery.

Ngugi said the hospital received the baby with complaints of diarrhoea and vomiting but upon further examination, the baby was found to have bruises all over his body, an indication that he had been assaulted.

“The child had bruises all over the head, abdomen and chest. He also had serious fractures in both arms and legs,” said Ngugi.

The hospital, he said, resuscitated the child with intravenous fluid and put him on antibiotics before stabilizing the fractures.

The child who is under the care of the hospital facility is expected to be taken to a children’s home upon full recovery.

As the hospital continues to attend to the innocent child, sleuths in Thika continue to hold Daniel Njoroge and Ann Nyangi, the prime suspects in the crime.

The two, a step-father to the kid and her biological mother will be charged with assault and child neglect respectively.

According to the child’s grandmother Nancy Mwikali who has since visited her grandson at the hospital, the two suspects had only lived together as husband and wife for three months.

Mwikali who spoke at the hospital further revealed that she has been living with Nyangi at their home and that she only left for Kiganjo three months ago.

“We were planting with the kid’s mother like three months ago and she left for Kiganjo when another lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 was imposed,” said Mwikali.

After leaving, Nyangi lied to her mother that she had rented a house at the sprawling village only to establish that she got married to a 21-year-old man who has never been introduced to the family.

Before the 20-year-old mother left their Makuyu home in Murang’a County, the baby, Mwikali said, was full of health.

On Friday last week, Mwikali said that Nyangi told her the baby was suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting when she advised her to take her to a public hospital.

When Nyangi failed to raise the Sh 600 required for hospital admission, she waited for her new husband until evening.

It is during that evening when Njoroge was allegedly feeding the baby when the mother discovered that the child had injury marks.

The mother who has since denounced the marriage between her daughter and the alleged assaulter urged the government to conduct a thorough probe on the matter and ensure that justice for the baby is served without failure.

“I will never ever want to see the accused man anywhere near my daughter. Upon the end of this case, I will order my daughter back home with immediacy,” said Mwikali.

The case which has since elicited fury among netizens is being probed by police to ascertain the motive of the perpetrator (s).

Susan Gitau, a Thika-based counselling psychologist asserted that the growing assault of children cases by parents are attributable to widening abuse of drugs, mental illnesses, postpartum depression and or addition to sex.

“The child should be monitored well and accorded the necessary support to avert eruption of mental challenges in future as a result of the assault. It’s sad that a man can batter a defenceless child who even is not conscious of what happened,” she said.