Mother Reborn After Baby’s Abduction and Dramatic Rescue in Cosenza
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The mother of a one-day-old baby, who was abducted late Tuesday afternoon by a couple from the Sacro Cuore clinic in the Calabrian city of Cosenza, said she felt as though she had “died and been reborn” after her daughter Sofia was found three hours later in a sweeping police operation.
“Thousands of you are writing from all over Italy,” Sofia’s mother, a 24-year-old housewife, wrote in a Facebook post featuring a picture of her baby girl and six-year-old brother. “The police did an exceptional job. While I had lost all hope, the entire city and the entire region stopped to look for our baby,” she added, expressing gratitude to everyone involved in the extensive search effort. “A mother and father died and were reborn yesterday.”
Late on Tuesday, police arrested 51-year-old Rosa Vespa, a Cosenza native, and her 43-year-old Senegalese husband, Acqua Moses, in connection with the abduction. Vespa, who had falsely claimed to be pregnant for the past nine months and announced the supposed birth of a baby boy named Ansel on January 8, posed as a nurse at the clinic. She entered the mother’s room and took the baby, claiming she needed to take her for a pediatric checkup.
Officers identified the suspects through clinic surveillance footage, which captured them leaving with the baby. When police raided their home, they found the couple celebrating with their family, having dressed the baby girl in blue to pass her off as a boy.
Investigative sources revealed that the clinic’s surveillance footage also captured the couple arguing before the abduction, likely because Vespa had taken a baby girl instead of a boy.
The baby was safely returned to the clinic to be reunited with her mother before being transferred to the Annunziata hospital for a medical checkup. Healthcare officials confirmed that she was in good health, and her father picked her up on Wednesday morning.
“It was amazing to hug my daughter again. I am happy—the baby is fine,” said the 26-year-old father.
The family is expected to return home on Wednesday.
