Discovery of the Faint Near-IR Afterglow of GRB 030528

We report on the discovery of the near‐IR transient of the long‐duration gamma‐ray burst GRB 030528 and its underlying host galaxy. The near‐IR transient was first observed in JHKs with SofI at the 3.6 m ESO‐NTT 16 hrs after the burst and later observations revealed a fading Ks‐band afterglow. The afterglow nature was confirmed by Chandra observations which found the source to be a fading X‐ray emitter. The lack of an optical afterglow and the early faintness in the near‐IR (Ks> 18.5 mag) place GRB 030528 in a parameter space usually populated by dark bursts. We find the host to be an elongated blue galaxy.