Sonko renews crackdown on Pumwani baby thieves with cash rewards
Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has promised a Sh50,000 cash reward for any security guards who will arrest and report child theft at Pumwani Maternity Hospital.
Governor Sonko asked the guards working at the facility to be vigilant at work by monitoring and patrolling the busy maternity hospital and arrest those who steal infants at the facility.
“Be vigilant and if anyone of you gets a child being stolen and reports then you will get a Sh50,000 reward,” said Mr Sonko during a third impromptu visit at the facility on Sunday morning.
He asked the officers to make sure that anyone leaving with a child from the hospital has an identification card, and a badge confirming that the child is his or hers.
Cases of child theft at one of the biggest maternity hospital in East and Central Africa has been rife with many mothers always losing their children while others having their infants exchanged by staff who work in cahoots with the child traffickers.
FOILED BABY THEFT
On September 1, a guard at the hospital, identified as Joseph Bitok, became a hero after he foiled an attempt to steal a baby from the facility.
Mr Bitok, who is stationed at the hospital’s main entrance on the first floor, intercepted the suspect identified as Mary Atieno after he heard cries from the suspect’s bag.
The suspect claimed that she only had a laptop inside the bag, only for the baby to be discovered inside the bag after being compelled to open it up.
“The baby was crying and when I asked her she said that it was her phone that was ringing. I searched the bag and found that it was a baby,” said Mr Bitok at the time.
The infant in question was three-day-old baby named Adrian, who the suspect smuggled out of the hospital after his mother, Rebecca Kasaya, had gone to process her discharge documents leaving the baby in bed unattended. And true to his words, Governor Sonko rewarded Mr Bitok with a cool Sh50,000 on Sunday.