Zambian peacekeeper celebrated for adopting orphaned baby from Central African Republic

A Zambian Army Captain, Mwila Chansa, has received praise for adopting an orphaned baby while on a UN Peacekeeping duties in the Central African Republic.

Captain Chansa who spoke on Monday of her battle to adopt the baby she first met while on deployment as a UN peacekeeper, said the baby girl’s mother was pregnant with twins, but developed a complication and died after giving birth to the first baby in November 2020, while the second child died before birth.

Captain Chansa said she heard the story of the baby when she visited Birao, a town near the border with Sudan and Chad, in March 2021.

According to Chansa, the baby was by then under the care of a nurse in the Zambian camp and after hearing the story, she said she made a decision to adopt her, but the bureaucracy turned into a long and laborious process in navigating the country’s Islamic law.

“I went to Google, trying to look up how to adopt a child from CAR. All the information was about USAid and how easy it is for Americans generally to adopt children. But there was nothing in regards to a Zambian adopting a child there,” she said in an interview in her country.

The Captain added that her “deep conviction” saw her “fight tooth and nail” to “engage the powers that be until the baby was here in Lusaka.”

“It just reminds me so much of the story of the biblical Moses. Adopting a child is like falling in love. You see so many men or so many women but you only choose one,” she said.

While commending the military officer, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said Captain Chansa demonstrated high humanity in her work.

“I woke up, my phone was buzzing. I was wondering what was going on?” Chansa said of the attention that the President’s recommendation brought her way.