Women fight for baby, reject DNA results

Saturday Vision

By John Semakula

A 25-year-old woman whose two month-old baby was reportedly stolen in August last year has rejected DNA results which showed she is not the biological mother of the baby, whom she claims was stolen from her.

Mary Musumika, a resident of Nakazadde village in Lugazi town council, Buikwe district, went for the DNA test late last year, together with Faridah Musitwa (whom she accused of stealing her baby), when the baby was four months old.

Musumika said: “The results were tampered with. Before going for the DNA test, we were told we were going to Wandegeya, but along way, the officers changed their mind and took us to a private clinic in Nakasero.

“I have petitioned the Police for a second test which they have accepted to carry out.”

DNA experts from the Government laboratory in Wandegeya on November 7 and December 3 went to Lugazi and collected blood samples from the two women for a fresh test.

Musumika says it is impossible for the DNA tests not to confirm that she is the mother of the baby.

Saturday Vision has learnt that the Police took the women to MBN Clinical Laboratories in Nakasero because Wandengeya had run out of the test requirements.

“I recently saw my baby, Daphne. She looks exactly, like her father and she is light-skinned like me,” Musibika said. “The child is mine.”

Suzan Kiwaala, a customer care official at MBN, said they handled the test and that before releasing the results, they summoned the Police and the two warring parties.

“That woman was around when we were handing over the results to them and when the parcel was being opened. Why should she dispute the results now?” Kiwaala wondered.

The criminal investigations officer at Lugazi Police Station, Henry Ayebare, said the case was confusing because preliminary investigations had indicated the baby belonged to the complainant.

There were reportedly no medical records indicating that Musitwa had given birth in the recent months. Musitwa also confessed to the Police that she had ‘hidden’ the pregnancy from her mother and some of her close relatives.

Musitwa, a resident of Kitega village in Lugazi town, was arrested from Southern Sudan last year with the alleged stolen baby and deported to Uganda.

The baby was taken away from her and kept at a children’s home in Kampala.

Musitwa was then detained at Lugazi Police Station and later charged with child theft. But she insists she is the biological mother of the baby.

Musumika says before going for the first DNA test, Musitwa swore that even if the test was carried out from abroad, they would still show her as the mother.

According to Lugazi Police, the DNA test was funded by a private Non-Governmental Organisation at a cost of sh220,000 per sample.

When the DNA results were released, showing that Musitwa was the owner of the child, court released her on bail. But the baby is still under Police custody, waiting for the second results.

On the day Musumika’s child went missing, she had asked a stranger to look after her, while she washed clothes nearby, only for the stranger to disappear with the child.

Musumika and her husband Robert Wandera, have since spent lots of money looking for the baby. The DNAs results were their last hope of getting their daughter.