The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa Post Correspondent
A CHIGODORA woman recently buried her grandson in a shallow grave alone.
Monica Nyamuambwa was convicted on her own guilty plea when she appeared before Mutare magistrate, Mr Lazarus Murendo last week.
She was facing charges of contravening the Birth and Deaths Registration Act.
Nyamuambwa was staying with the one-year-six-months-old toddler since January 2017 at Plot number 5, Howth Farm in Chigodora when he died.
According to Nyamuambwa, the toddler succumbed to wounds which were all over his body, swollen legs and swollen ears on March 12. She did not notify the responsible authorities of the death, neither did she notify her daughter and her son-in-law who are the child’s parents. Rather, she went ahead and dug a shallow grave just outside her yard, but in her maize field alone.
Neighbours were also not aware of the death and burial of the toddler.
The matter, however, came to light when dogs dug out the boy’s body from the shallow grave.
The neighbours who saw the body informed the police who subsequently arrested her.
Mr Matthew Chimutunga prosecuted.
Nyamuambwa was being charged with failure to notify death of a person as defined in Section 27 (1) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, Chapter 5: 02. In passing judgment, Mr Murendo considered the age and state of Nyamuambwa, saying that she was not a sophisticated rural old woman who had not known the seriousness of her offence at the time of commission.
He warned and cautioned her, further advising her not to commit a similar offence in the near future.
In her mitigation, Nyakuambwa said she had acted out of ignorance by digging the shallow grave herself and burying the child without informing his parents or any of her neighbours. She, however, told the court that she had not contacted her daughter and her husband to inform them of their child’s death because she did not have their contact numbers as they stayed in Headlands. She went on to beg for the court’s forgiveness. The woman who was estimated to be around 72-years-old, said she did not know her age.
