How it is even possible that a two-year-old girl would be raped in a COVID-19 Isolation centre, is aching to think of. But this terrible incident happened in South Africa.
The victim’s aunt, who chose to be anonymous, to protect the child’s identity, said the incident happened at the Dr. George Mukhari Academic Hospital in Pretoria.
She said the child’s mother agreed for her to be taken into isolation centre, following symptoms of COVID-19 that she showed. She was later called and told that the child was crying and appears to be in severe pain.
The aunt further noted that the child has been struggling to walk, after she was discharged from the hospital.
After the mother closely inspected her child she discovered that there had been ‘penetration’.
Narrating the ordeal, the aunt who spoke to newsmen said: ‘The mother and child were referred to the George Mukhari Hospital by the KT Motubatse clinic in Soshanguve on June 15,’ told News24.
‘The nurses at the clinic said since the child was struggling to breathe, she should be taken to George Mukhari Hospital to be tested for coronavirus.
‘The hospital called in the evening and told the mother that the child was crying and in pain. They later called around 11pm and said the child was now sleeping. The hospital staff called again in the morning and told my sister to come and pick up her child because she had been discharged. The hospital said the child had tested negative for Covid-19.’
‘I saw that there was something wrong with the child. As the mother was changing the nappy, she discovered some white fluid on her private parts.
According to her, the mother thought initially that it was medication but realised that the child had been defiled the following morning when she saw the same whitish fluid.
She said when the girl was taken back to the hospital, it was confirmed that she had been raped and the nurses suspected that the rape must have occurred in the isolation ward, where she was kept.
Provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Mathapelo Peters told Newsmen, that a rape case has been opened, with the hospital also conducting its own investigation into the incident.
