The case of a homeless Cape Verdian woman who left her newborn son stark naked in a recycling bin last November has finally seen the Public Ministry formulate a charge of attempted murder.
The incident which shocked the nation saw President Marcelo personally thank ‘the hero’ – himself a homeless man – who rescued the baby, saving him in the nick of time from death from exposure (click here).
Explain reports, the Public Ministry case sets out to show that the 22-year-old mother took pains to hide her pregnancy and after giving birth alone put her child inside a plastic bag along with the after-birth, and placed the whole lot in a yellow recycling bin (for plastic and metal waste) “abandoning the locale straight afterwards”.
Say prosecutors in a statement, the young woman “decided to have her child without any hospital assistance and without telling anyone, always with the intention of killing him immediately after his birth, hiding from everyone what she had done”.
Indeed, he only didn’t bleed to death (because the umbilical cord was not tied) due to the cold temperaturesof that November day. It prevented the blood from flowing freely.
The child’s mother has been held in Tires women’s jail after being identified through CCTV images of the scene.
Her baby meantime has been adopted and is understood to have suffered no adverse consequences from his terrible first few hours of life.
