Three friends, Christo Plekenpol, Marie Vermeulen and Ruald Roos, were socializing at the dam when they saw a silver and black Colt bakkie stop on the bridge between Athlone and Kruger Dam.<\/p>\n
A man got out and threw something into Athlone Dam, before getting back into his bakkie and speeding off.<\/p>\n
The trio went to investigate and made the grim discovery.<\/p>\n
The police were alerted alongside the paper, and an appeal was made to the community to come forward with information.<\/p>\n
Two women were later identified by the Mhluzi community as possible mothers.<\/p>\n
Their DNA was taken and sent for analysis, which proved that neither of them had aborted the fully developed fetus.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Meanwhile, the family, child and sexual offences unit is pushing for control prosecutors to sign off on baby X’s docket.<\/p>\n
Baby X, grabbed the attention of thousands of people worldwide when the Middelburg Observer, reported about the infants discovery next to the railway line in Aerorand-West on 11 November 2014.<\/a><\/p>\n She was found wrapped in a newspaper alive by a teenager who took a shortcut through the bushy area behind the railway track.<\/p>\n The Middelburg Observer photographs taken on the scene, went viral the next week after the story was published on the front page.<\/p>\n Hundreds of people streamed to the Middeburg Hospital where Baby X <\/a>was treated, hoping to adopt.<\/p>\n The situation became so dire, that access to Baby X was immediately restricted, and after her discharge from hospital, she was taken to a place of safety out of town.<\/p>\n \u2022According to captain Khanyisile Zwane, there has been no credible leads since her discovery which could have led police to the mother.<\/p>\n “Despite many calls, not a single one panned out in our favour,” she told the Observer.<\/p>\n The FCS-unit is now pushing for the case to be closed so that Baby X can be adopted.<\/p>\n “Baby X <\/a>will not be eligible for adoption if the docket remains open, the docket has been sent to court for a final decision on closure,” captain Zwane confirmed.<\/p>\n Social worker, Ms Su-Mari Rootman, told the Observer that they are simply waiting for the docket to be closed so that a match can be made with screened couples in line for adoption.<\/p>\n “Can you believe that Baby X will turn one in September<\/a>, she’s healthy and happy, and we couldn’t be happier for her,” Ms Rootman told the Observer.<\/p>\n Read related stories here:<\/p>\n New born baby found dead<\/a><\/p>\n (Warning Graphic Content): Baby dumped by mother survived unscathed<\/a><\/p>\n Baby found in bag<\/a><\/p>\n Video: Voor die wind met Koningskind<\/a><\/p>\n Update: Baby X in place of safety<\/a><\/p>\n Video: The baby’s hero in blue<\/a><\/p>\n Send a message to our SMS line 37 940 or add us onto Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a> to receive your free daily news updates.<\/p>\n Also check out our Video\u2019s<\/a> on Youtube<\/a> daily!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Middelburg SAPS has confirmed that the two women identified by Mhluzi residents as possible mothers to the fetus that was found drifting in a bucket in the Athlone Dam in February 2012, could not be linked to the concealment of birth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":32326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Gerhard Rheeder","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2885,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-crime-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Crime News"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}