Giant killer rats ate 3-month-old baby girl

The area is rat-infested, according to the woman's landlady. Photo / Getty Images

Giant rats have eaten a 3-month-old baby girl alive in her home in Katlehong, Johannesburg, at the weekend.

The baby's mother, who has been arrested for child neglect, found the baby's remains in her "shack" in Johannesburg after leaving the girl to go to a party.

A neighbour was alerted by screams and rushed inside the home where the bloody scene was discovered, reported the Sun.

The neighbour said: "The baby could only have died a painful death. The infant's tongue, eyes and fingers had all been eaten.

"Besides the missing body parts, the remains of her body had bites and wounds all over that were inflicted by the sharp teeth of the rats.

"This woman must rot in jail. She does not deserve to be a mother."

Angry locals said the mother had been drinking all night at a bar and had taken the dead girl's twin brother, Lucky, who is now in the custody of his father.

Noluthando Mtshali, the daughter of the landlady who rented the shack to the mother, revealed the baby twins had been taken to hospital last week.

She said: "The only thing this woman likes is going out partying.

"I just could not bring myself to go in and see what happened to this poor child.

"She has been a tenant since the beginning of the year and her twins were both in hospital last week but we do not know why they had been taken to hospital."

"She came back in the early hours of the morning with a new boyfriend and they tried to break into the shack since she had lost the key and they found the baby girl dead.

"They were claiming that the child was burned."

"We have lots of rats in the area. She leaves the children alone all night long and they cry themselves to sleep," the landlady, Mama Sesi Mtshali, said.

"She would not say she left the baby alone."