Imaan Sharmar: Mother’s plea after 11-day-old baby kidnapped at shopping mall

A heartbroken mother has begged for her 11-day-old baby to be returned to her after he was snatched at a shopping mall, sparking fears it could be the work of a backyard adoption ring.

Imaan Sharmar said she was at a Cape Town mall with her son, Mogamat Imaad Shamar, when he was kidnapped by a woman on June 28.

Ms Sharmar, who is also known as Britney Brandt, told Cape Argus the woman had first befriended her when she was 35 weeks pregnant.

Dressed as a nurse, the suspect who called herself Chivon said she was keen to sign Ms Sharmar up to a program that helped provide new mothers with counselling and skills.

On the day of the abduction, Ms Sharmar said she was meant to attend a workshop and had travelled with the alleged kidnapper from her home in Strandfontein in an Uber to Middlestead mall in Bellville.

She said the pair ate a meal at a fast food outlet but she became sick soon after. Ms Sharmar said she was forced to leave her baby in the care of the suspect for a couple of minutes while she went to the toilet to vomit.

When she returned, the woman and her son had vanished.

“I don’t know what her intentions were and what she was doing with him. . .it has been driving me crazy, I do not know if he drank anything, or what he has been given to drink,” Ms Sharmar said.

“Does he have clothing on? Is his nappy being changed? Is she hurting him? My mind is running so far away from me, my body is filled with anger.

“Whatever your name is, I don’t know if the name you gave me, if it is your real name, please, if you want to do it anonymously, drop him off somewhere safe, with warm clothes on, wrap him in his three blankets, leave him, tip us off where he is.

“I am literally at a point of begging, whoever you are working with, bring him back, he is only a week old, he needs my milk, he needs to be home.”

The case has chilling similarities to that of two-month-old Kai-isha Meniers, who was kidnapped outside a supermarket in Bishop Lavis in 2022.

Video footage of that incident showed a woman who appeared to be eight months pregnant walking away with the baby. The alleged offender had earlier befriended Ka-isha’s mother, Francis Meniers, by offering to buy and donate clothes to her baby.

In another incident, 15-month-old baby Imvano Yeko was taken by a woman who had befriended the mother after she offered to buy them food and chips.

Bianca Van Aswegen, National Co-ordinator for Missing Children SA, said the similarities of this case to others were “quite scary”.

“I am thinking is this a new trend, is it linked to illegal adoptions, what is the motive behind these types of crimes, especially people pretending to be a sponsor in the new case or a social worker, to get access to these babies, it might lead to illegal adoptions,” she told the Cape Argus.

“This broadens the safety to access information of new mothers, DSD registered social workers, are they being vetted, social workers and sponsors, what is the link there, it opens a lot of questions.”