Kidnapped boy rescued at border town

Merina Andala and her husband Thodosia Ngala, with their son Giovanni Hinzano, who had been kidnapped by their Ugandan nanny. [Gloria Aradi, Standard]

Until last Monday, Merina Andala considered herself a lucky mother.

For two years, she had stayed with the perfect nanny — a diligent 21-year-old Ugandan woman who lovingly and responsibly cared for her son since he was just six-months-old.

During that time, the nanny had inspired so much trust in Andala and her husband, Thodosia Ngala, that they never imagined her to be capable of taking away their two-year-old son until last Monday.

Nothing seemed amiss on the morning the nanny disappeared with the boy under her care and the family car. She and an accomplice drove more than 400 kilometres away, until they were intercepted by police at the Malaba border while attempting to cross into Uganda.

“We leave for work in the morning. My husband often leaves at 6.30am and I leave an hour later. On that morning, he went to pick something in the bedroom the nanny shares with my son and found her talking on the phone in her vernacular,” recounted Andala.

But that did not strike either Andala or her husband as unusual, and neither did the fact that the nanny had come back home the previous day in exceptionally high spirits, nor the fact that she had woken up unusually early and prepared the child’s porridge earlier than she ordinarily did.

In hindsight, Andala says these were the warning signs.

That morning, after man and wife left for work, Andala sent her friend to pick something from the home, but found the door locked.

When Andala called the nanny to ask her to open the door, her phone was off as it would remain for the rest of the day. “I sent a neighbour to check and she found the door locked too. I didn’t suspect anything because I had sent the nanny to a posho mill. I called her again an hour later and her phone was still off,” recounted Andala.

Andala's instincts then told her something was wrong and she quickly rushed home.

“When I entered the gate I noticed the car was missing. I called my husband and asked if he had returned home to pick the car but he said he was still at work,” she recounted.

A search around the house revealed that not only was their son, Giovanni Hinzano missing, but also some of his clothes and toys, and all of the nanny’s belongings.

Andala quickly reported the incident at the Buruburu Police Station, with her husband filing another report at a separate police station.

It was several hours of torture, until a few minutes past 7pm when Buruburu OCS called to inform the family that the nanny and a young Ugandan man had been intercepted, along with their son and car.

By then, Andala recounts, she had grown weary from crying.

“Around 7.30pm the OCS called us and said the car and the child had been recovered, as they attempted to cross into Uganda at the Malaba border. At 9 we boarded a bus with a couple of police officers to Malaba,” she said.

Found son

At Malaba, Andala and Ngala found their son sitting calmly with the nanny.

According to Buruburu Directorate of Criminal Investigations, police immediately suspected the house-help would run to Uganda. Officers at the Buruburu Police Station then coordinated with police at the border and through CCTV cameras, were able to track the kidnappers’ movements.

The two suspects have been brought to Nairobi and will face several charges, including child trafficking, kidnapping and car theft.

For Andala, the trust she had for nannies is gone.

“I don’t want a house-help again. I will just enroll my son at a daycare,” she said.