Police in Machinga are keeping in custody a teen mother for allegedly killing her 16 months old baby to save her new relationship.

Machinga police publicist, Davie Sulumba, confirmed the arrest of the teen mother saying she is a standard eight pupil at St. Martins Primary School and she was staying with her mother at Chikapa Village, Traditional Authority Nsanama in the district.

“The girl is said to have fallen pregnant and given birth to a baby girl. After giving birth, the girl was engaged to another man,” Sulumba said.

Sulumba said, after some days, people found the body of the child floating in a nearby dam.

“Postmortem ordered by the police proved that the child died of suffocation. This led to the arrest of the girl. During interrogation, the girl confessed to have thrown her child into the dam. She said she did this to save her new affair because her new partner was not comfortable with the baby,” he said.

Reacting to the development, Youth Net and Counseling (YONECO) Executive Director, MacBain Mkandawire, said there are many teenage pregnancies which are not investigated in the country.

“This girl is a minor. The police should investigate the first person who impregnated her. The police should also investigate and possibly consider as a suspect the man who is alleged to have forced her to kill the baby to keep the relationship,” Mkandawire said.

“In the first place, the parents or relatives of the girl were supposed to report the pregnancy to authorities. But they did not. Now, they are reporting the alleged murder. This becomes very difficult for us to deal with such cases.”