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A Zimbabwean nanny was jailed for 22 years for the murder of a 10-month-old baby she stuffed into a drawer "for crying too much" before she settled down to watch TV.

Violet Moyo, 22, was sentenced on Thursday after being found guilty of murder over what the judge said was a "very cruel and brutal" death, the state-run Chronicle newspaper reported.

Moyo, from Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, was left in charge of the baby boy while the parents went to work and had fed him and put him to bed.

But the child woke up after five hours and started crying, the prosecution said.

Moyo tried in vain to calm the boy and in frustration she wrapped him in a blanket, stuffed him in a linen drawer and shut it while she went to watch a film on television.

She went to check on the child after three hours and found he was dead, the newspaper said Friday.

High court judge Lawrence Kamocha described the baby's death as "very cruel and brutal".

"Despite the baby's distressed cry, you chose to ignore him and went to the lounge to watch a television movie which is quite clear you wanted to kill him," Kamocha said.