A 33-year-old Mutorashanga woman who gave birth to a bouncing baby boy before digging a shallow pit in which she buried him alive, has been sentenced to perform 210 hours of community service at a local government school.
Margaret Musarapasi of Plot 12 Chihamba, Mutorashanga was Friday back before Chinhoyi magistrate Tapiwa Banda for sentence.
This is after initially appearing in court last week facing one count of infanticide.
The State case led by Tendai Tapi is that on 5 February this year at around 11pm, a heavily pregnant Musarapasi, who was alone at her homestead, gave birth to a baby boy.
The following morning at around 5am, she allegedly took the new-born infant to a nearby bush where she dug a shallow pit and buried it alive.
The incident came to light when an alert neighbouring village health worker, Yeukai Mushamba, got suspicious of Musarapasi, who was bleeding from her private parts and complaining of an undisclosed illness.
Upon being quizzed on what had happened to her pregnancy, Musarapasi allegedly confessed to delivering a baby boy the previous night, before shoving him into a pit the next day that she covered with soil and left him to die.
The matter was reported to police at Mutorashanga who attended the scene and exhumed the remains, leading to the woman’s arrest.
A postmortem report compiled by a government medical officer, Dr Hardlife Zambezi confirmed the child died of asyphxia (suffocation) secondary to being buried alive.
