Mother of abandoned baby found – buying beer

THE teenage mother who abandoned her baby at Dora Nginza Hospital earlier this week and disappeared was arrested late yesterday afternoon – while buying beer in a bar.

Hospital social worker Pamela Rubushe said she had been inundated with calls from people who provided information to help her trace the family of the nine-day-old baby girl, following an article in The Herald yesterday.

Rubushe said the baby’s mother, Junaid Bardien, 19, had given birth somewhere outside the hospital on March 23, but had been brought to the hospital by ambulance and transferred to the high care unit the next day.

She said the address and contact details supplied by Bardien had turned out to be fake.

“I received a phone call at about noon that Junaid was walking around with a man. I then organised a police van to collect her,” Rubushe said.

Kwazakhele police station’s Brigadier Ernie Neveling sent two constables to pick up the woman.

Rubushe said: “The three of us went to the Destiny Bar in Central.

“Junaid came to the bar and bought beer. She was arrested as she took the bottle of beer.

“She is unrepentant and has refused to answer questions.”

Rubushe appealed to members of the Bardien family to come forward to take care of the child.

“I know she [Bardien] has two brothers, Faeez and Nazim.” One lived in Port Elizabeth and the other in Cape Town, Rubushe said. “They haven’t returned my calls.” She appealed to anyone with information on their whereabouts to contact her.

Port Elizabeth residents, meanwhile, opened their hearts to the little girl – who is still in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit – donating clothes, nappies, blankets and other baby items.

Several also offered to take her into their homes.

Rubushe can be reached on(041) 406-4328.