A one-year-old toddler has been reunited with his mother after he was allegedly abandoned by his father on the side of the road in Fordsburg in central Johannesburg on Thursday night.
Gauteng police said the boy's mother met with the 24-year-old man at Bree Street taxi rank at around 2pm on Thursday to drop off the boy. Warrant Officer Xoli Mbele said the child usually spent the weekends with his father.
The toddler was later seen dropped off in Queen Street in Fordsburg by a man travelling in a grey Volkswagen Jetta around 6pm.
A woman spotted the crying toddler roaming around in the street; picked him up and took him to the nearest police station. When she arrived, the child did not want to be separated from her, Mbele said.
A piece of paper found in the boy's pants was the only link to finding his family.
"The paper has contact details of the nursery and, with the help of the nursery, we managed to find the mother of the child." The child and his mother were reunited on Friday morning, Mbele said.
The 31-year-old mother was shocked to find her son had been abandoned.
The couple had broken up almost a year ago, but, according to the mother, there was no bad blood.
"She said they were not fighting," Mbele said.
The woman told the police she usually dropped off the child with his father on the weekends so the two could spend time together. The police were now searching for the man and he would face a charge of child abandonment.
"When we called him this morning, we asked him where his son was and he said [the child] was with his mother. When we asked him to come to the police station for an interview, he said he did not have money [to come]. Then he switched his phone off," Mbele said.
Source: News24
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