The mother of a one-day-old baby who
was abducted late on Tuesday afternoon by a couple from the
Sacro Cuore clinic in the Calabrian city of Cosenza before
security officers found her three hours later after a sweeping
police operation said she died and was reborn following her
daughter Sofia's retrieval.
"Thousands of you are writing from everywhere in Itay", Sofia's
mother, a 24-year-old housewife, wrote in a Facebook post
featuring a picture of the baby girl and of her six-year-old
brother.
"The police did an exceptional job, while I had lost all hope,
the entire city, the Region stopped to look for our baby", she
wrote, thanking everyone involved in the extensive search
operation.
"A mother and father died and were reborn yesterday".
Police late on Tuesday arrested Rosa Vespa, a 51-year-old
Cosenza native and her Senegalese husband Acqua Moses, 43, over
the abduction.
Vespa, who had pretended to be pregnant over the past nine
months and had announced on January 8 the alleged birth of a
baby boy, Ansel, posed as a nurse at the clinic and took away
the baby from the mother's room, saying she needed to take her
to see the clinic's paediatrician for a checkup.
When officers, who had identified the pair thanks to
surveillance footage at the clinic showing them as they took
away the baby, broke into their home, they found the couple
celebrating with family their new baby, whom they had dressed up
in blue.
Investigative sources said footage taken inside the clinic
showed the couple fighting before taking away the baby,
presumably after Vespa kidnapped a baby girl instead of a boy.
The baby was taken back to the clinic so her mother could see
her again and then to the local public Annunziata hospital for a
checkup.
Healthcare sources said she was in good health and her father
picked her up from the hospital on Wednesday morning.
"It was amazing to hug my daughter again, I am happy - the baby
is fine", her 26-year-old father said.
The family are set to return home on Wednesday.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
