Months after being left in the middle of the road when her mother was hijacked, Azaria celebrated her first birthday.
|||Durban - Months after being left in the middle of the road when her mother was hijacked, the baby girl celebrated her first birthday with her parents and grandparents in Durban.
In February, two hijackers approached Shriah Nair after she had parked her BMW on Hunt Road, Berea.
Before she could open the back door to unstrap her sleeping daughter from her car seat, the hijackers pounced. They ignored the desperate mother’s plea to leave her child behind and sped off.
They left little Azaria Grace on Charles Strachan Road, still strapped into her car seat.
A passing motorist, Erik Bredberg, found her still asleep in the car seat and took her to the nearest police station where she was reunited with her mother. The car was found an hour later parked in Chesterville.
Shriah, her husband, Jonathan, and their little girl have since moved to Gauteng, but returned to Durban last Thursday to celebrate their daughter’s first birthday at their parents’ home in Glenwood.
Shriah said she was grateful to be given the opportunity to celebrate her child’s birthday.
“She is our bundle of joy. I can still remember what she wore that day and thought it would be the last day i would see her.
“We are there for her every step of the way. It has been an emotional past few months,” she said.
She said she could still remember screaming at the hijackers because they did not know Azaria was in the back seat. “The 20-minute ordeal is the worst moment in my life. I had to be sedated after the traumatising incident,” she said.
Jonathan said his wife has not driven a car since the hijacking.
“She is still a bit edgy around people in public. She still has nightmares of the hijacking. She is trying to find closure, though,” he said.
Azaria celebrated her first birthday with her grandparents and extended family and loved the Barney and friends party theme, her favourite cartoon character.
Daily News
