Born to live-baby -survives chilling ordeal (Front page)

Left:The baby boy after he was untied from the polythene bag .  Right:The baby boy now on admission at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

A tale of a mother’s cruelty (or temporary insanity) and the survival instinct of a newborn baby has sent the Kotobabi Police and residents of Mamobi in Accra, on a massive hunt for a nursing mother who slashed the scrotum of her newly delivered baby and abandoned him in a tied polythene bag.

Confirming the strange incident to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Crime Officer of the Kotobabi Police Station, ASP John Coffie, said the incident was brought to the attention of the police by a security man of the Mother and Child Community Development Centre, a kindergarten at Mamobi.

According to the story, Yaw Zakari, the security man, reported to work at about 5.30 a.m. last Thursday and during a routine inspection, he found something struggling in a plastic bag behind the school compound.

Alarmed by the spectacle and suspecting a snake, Zakari agitated the plastic bag with a stone, after which he heard the cry of a baby.

ASP Coffie said, Zakari then moved closer to the bag and saw that it, contained a baby. He reported the matter to the police and a team of investigators who were detailed to the scene confirmed, after examination, that it was, indeed, a baby boy with the placenta and umbilical cord still attached.

He said the baby was taken to the Mamobi Polyclinic, where a medical examination indicated that he had a cut on his scrotum and his arm, as a result of which he was bleeding profusely.

He was, therefore, referred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for surgery and he is currently responding to treatment.
The police, in collaboration with the Mamobi Neighbourhood Watch Dog Committee, has mounted a search to track down the perpetrator of the crime.

ASP Coffie appealed to the public to alert the police to any resident of the area who had delivered recently but was without the baby for the appropriate action to be taken.