Chinese Baby 'buried For Eight Days' In Graveyard Survives (PHOTO)
Chinese Baby 'buried For Eight Days' In Graveyard Survives (PHOTO)
A newborn baby who was buried for eight days in a graveyard in southern Chinahas been found alive, according to local media reports.
The baby boy was found after a woman picking herbs near a cemetery in China's Guangxi region heard an infant's cries coming from underground, the Nanguo Morning Post said.
Spooked, the woman rushed back to her village and returned with police.
Officers dug several centimetres into the ground and found a muddied cardboard box containing the wailing infant.
The parents reportedly abandoned the baby, who has a cleft lip, at the cemetery on April 24. Two days later, and believing him dead, some relatives returned to bury the child.
Eight days after that, he was found covered in mud and coughing up dirty water but alive. Authorities believe he survived because rainwater and oxygen seeped into his box. His condition is believed to be stable now.
In China, though it is illegal to abandon children, many parents give up ill or disabled babies because they fear they cannot afford the medical care needed.
The mother told the Nanguo Morning Post that when her baby was born with a cleft lip she "panicked".
She and her husband, both poor farmers in the countryside, already have a daughter. Asked why she abandoned her son, she said: "It's hard to explain. The situation is complicated and people on the outside can't imagine – all in all, our lack of thought and irresponsibility are the cause."
Five people including three relatives have been detained on suspicion of intentional homicide.
In recent years China has opened dozens of "baby hatches" or welfare homes in 10 provincesso parents can abandon infants safely.
But many of the hatches have been overwhelmed by throngs of abandoned children.
At one baby hatch in Guangzhou province last year more than 260 children were left in under two months. All of the abandoned infants had conditions such as cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome or congenital heart disease.
"I hope everyone understands the difficulties the welfare centre faces," Xu Jiu, director of the centre, told Xinhua news agency.
"We are temporarily closing the centre [to new babies] so that we can properly care for the infants already at the centre."
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