The love and care that Jamie Faith Naidoo of Durban received when a policewoman breastfed her and hospital patients cooed over her in 2011 were rare in her short life.
At least 1500 mourners yesterday heard that the three-year-old was sold for R100 when she was six months old and then removed from a place of safety into the foster care of a grandmother, who did not want her.
Jamie's lifeless body was found in her grandmother's bed in Chatsworth, south of Durban, last week.
Her body was covered in bruises, marks which resembled cigarette burns and she had sustained broken limbs.
Her maternal grandmother, Salatchee Basanich, 55, and her 31-year-old mother, Patricia Kershnee Ishwarlal, a sex worker and drug addict, have been charged with her murder.
Durban metro police officer Captain Rita Naidoo said in a speech delivered on her behalf at the funeral yesterday, that she was sent to beachfront on a cold June evening when a man reported that he had bought a baby for R100.
"The mother walked away from us to a meal that the man had bought her with no interest in the child,' she said.
The child was taken to Addington Hospital where patients carried her and she was eventually breastfed by a policewoman, who was a new mother, to calm her down.
Havenside Civic Association's Mubarak Mohamed read an official report which stated that the child was "flourishing" at the place of safety and that Bsanich wanted her to be given up for adoption.
"Who removed her from a place of safety to a gruesome death? As a community we need to know," he said.
KwaZulu-Natal Social Development MEC Weziwe Thusi said she was angry and ashamed as Jamie's death happened on her watch.
"I want to assure you that our department will get to the bottom of this matter. I will make it my business that everyone who failed this little girl pays for it. We have already asked the eThekwini cluster to look into the matter. We believe that professionals entrusted with Jamie's life have a case to answer," she said.
Jamie's father Demitri van Vuuren was released from a Durban prison recently following a drug-related conviction and was living in the city centre at the time of her death.
Supported by his parents and grandmother, who had travelled from the Western Cape for the funeral, Van Vuuren placed a teddy bear in his daughter's small white casket.
His parents wanted Jamie to live with them in the Western Cape but the court ordered that she join her three siblings already in Basanich's care.
Her sister and brother, who have since been removed to a place of safety, wept as they stood together at the casket.
Basanich and Ishwarlal will appear in court next week to apply for bail.
The state will then be in possession of the post mortem results.
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