Tinotenda Hove – Doctors from the Helidrive National Air Rescue Service delivered a baby mid-air aboard a ZimAir ambulance, following the transfer of a 13-year-old girl from Maphisa Hospital to United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) last week.

While the medical team is being celebrated for what has been dubbed a miraculous feat, women’s rights activists and citizens are asking the most pressing question: Who raped this child?

Why is a statutory rape case being masked as a national medical triumph?

The child, who went into labour just as the helicopter took off, was five centimetres dilated and carrying a footling breech baby — an emergency condition. She had to be transferred due to the lack of theatre services at Maphisa, which had closed for renovations.

According to Dr. Marshall Kahari, who performed the mid-air delivery: “She was experiencing contractions every minute, and suddenly we noticed a footling breech. We had no choice but to deliver the baby immediately.” He added that he had never delivered a breech baby before.

The patient and her newborn were stabilised at UBH and discharged the following day. And that, according to the government, was the end of the story — a “miracle in the skies.”

But for many Zimbabweans, especially women’s rights defenders, this is no miracle. It is a crime scene.

This child is only 13 years old, and under Zimbabwean law, that means she is a rape victim. Yet, rather than launch an immediate investigation into who impregnated her, the state has glorified the event — praising the medical staff while ignoring the trauma of a young girl who was sexually abused and forced to give birth.

It is unacceptable that a case of statutory rape is being used to generate positive publicity for a government that has, time and again, failed to protect Zimbabwe’s children from sexual predators.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the Zimbabwe Republic Police, and the Justice Department have not issued a single statement demanding accountability or launching a public investigation into the rape of this minor.

Instead, the only public voice has been that of Dr. Kahari, giving interviews about the in-flight delivery, while the victim — a vulnerable child from a rural area — is being used as a faceless backdrop to a state-sponsored PR campaign.

This is not just negligence. It is systemic abuse.

If this child were from a wealthy suburb in Harare or Bulawayo, would the country be silent? Would authorities fail to question the adult who raped her?