The Department of Social Welfare has taken custody of two children from a frustrated woman who had contemplated killing them and herself. A third child was however, released to her upon her request. Stella Asantewa, unemployed, who could no longer bear the neglect and abandonment by her husband, Kwesi Kwarteng, 27, a petty trader at Kwame Nkrumah Circle, had decided to buy pesticide to poison herself and her children. But a passer-by who overhead her talking to herself, apprehended her and handed her over to the Neoplan Police who in turn took her to the Kaneshie Police. A source at the Kaneshie Police Station told the Times that after listening to Stella, the police took her to the Department of Social Welfare at Kaneshie but the director there refused to accept her, with the excuse that there was no “fund for such things.” Shocked at the reaction of the director, the police bought Stella and the children some food after which they took them to the Head office of the Department of Social Welfare at the Ministries. It was there that Stella handed over two of the children a boy aged 5 and girl, 3, to the officers of the department. Stella, narrating her ordeal to the welfare officers said, “Anytime I think about how to get money to feed, bath and cloth the children; something tells me to kill them.” She said she met her husband at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle at the age of 17 while she was a 'chop bar' attendant and got pregnant by him the same year. She added that Kwarteng asked them to stay at Achimota Mile 7 but after giving birth to the third child, he has abandoned them. She decided to go and look for him at the Nkrumah Circle. One evening, she actually did meet him, but after telling her to wait while he bought food, he absconded, “and that was the last time that I ever set my eyes on him,” she added. That was about a month ago.