KIGALI - BEWARE. A Kigali-based nurse was this week arrested for allegedly stealing a baby from a hospital.

Epiphanie Mukandori, 23, a resident of Nyakabanda Sector, Nyarugenge District in Kigali City, is said to have stolen a two-day old infant from Francine Mutoniwase at Kigali University Central Hospital (CHUK)’s Muhima-based maternity section.

Police say the suspect took advantage of the situation which the baby’s mother was in at the time of delivery and took off with the baby.

Mukandori admits committing the crime, attributing her act to the fact that she had suffered two miscarriages before, and was desperate to have a baby.

Mukandori said she was deceived by the devil and that she had lied to her husband that she had given birth since he was away at the time of her second miscarriage. The husband is a cross-border commercial vehicle driver.

Mukandori, who interestingly said that she took Mutoniwase’s baby out of "sympathy", claimed that while she was at the hospital, she overheard Mutoniwase, 17, wondering how she would raise her newly-born baby since she was a disadvantaged minor.

She said the mother of the baby was already in a difficult situation since she did not have money to cover hospital bills.

Realising how vulnerable the seventeen-year-old mother was, Mukandori drew near her, started to befriend and then advised Mutoniwase to give her the baby so she can find them outside the hospital.

This, according to both police and the suspect, was to presumably help Mutoniwase leave the hospital without paying.

Subsequently, Mutoniwase handed over her baby to the nurse, who in turn bribed her away out of the hospital with the baby by giving Frw10, 000 to a guard.

However, drama ensued when the rightful mother to the baby showed up moments after and she was denied exit.

And in subsquent investigations, police was tipped about a woman in Nyakabanda who, all of a sudden, appeared with a newly-born baby, resulting in Mukandori’s arrest a month later.

Meanwhile, Mutoniwase said that the father to the baby, Aimable Nsabimana, was arrested and thrown behind bars in Kigali Central Prison, for defilement.

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