Cameroon: Stolen two-month-old baby re-united with family

A two-month-old baby of Richard Suh and Gillian Suh based in Bamenda in the North West province (region) of the republic of Cameroon may not immediately be consciously aware of what she has just gone through in the last five days or so, but her parents definitely have stories to tell.

By Yemti Harry Ndienla

The baby was reunited with her parents after she was stolen. The country's State radio reported yesterday that the baby’s mother had taken her to the Bamenda regional hospital for a medical consultation when she was stolen. Gillian Suh is quoted as explaining that after consulting she was expected to pay 100 FCFA but she had only a 1000 FCFA bank note on her, so she left the room to change the money outside. Upon returning into the consultation room to pay the money, the report says, she asked a woman seated on a bench outside the room to help her and hold the baby. But when she came back, the woman was gone and the baby nowhere to be found. For about five days the baby was separated from her parents, who we learnt, carried out a desperate search for her. First, following a tip-off, they led a squad of the rapid intervention unit of the police to Bafut outside Bamenda for a search that did not pay off. Then someone hinted them of the presence of a supposedly stolen baby with a palm wine seller at Small Mankon still in Bamenda. This time around, the baby was found but only when the alleged thief was seemingly already getting fed up with continuing to keep the crying and visibly worried baby. (The baby was said to have been drinking only water, refusing to eat what the woman prepared). She willingly handed herself to the police. It was not clear what the police were planning to do to her. But she has since denied that her intention was to steal the child. «Why would a woman like me want to steal a baby,» she lamented.