THE Police at Akyem Edubiase in the Akyemansa District of the Eastern Region have arrested a 19-year-old girl who slashed the throat of her newly born baby boy and dumped the body.
She was identified only as Patience, aka Mummy, and was believed to be suffering from depression.
According to sources, the teenage single mother also has a five-year-old child and was reported to have said she killed the baby because the baby was deformed, with some of his body parts looking like an animal.
The sad incident occurred at Akyem Atenrom near Etwereso in the Akyemansa District last week.
According to reports, the suspect delivered a baby boy on Friday at dawn but alleged that parts of the baby’s body looked like an animal and subsequently took the baby into a nearby bush where she slashed the throat with a kitchen knife.
A witness, Nana Owusu, who confirmed the incident on radio, said that “She is a single mother with a five-year-old child. She left the village to stay in Accra, where she got pregnant again, and recently came to her village, Akyem Otanduro, near Akyem Etwereso.”
He said, “When she came the family noticed she was pregnant but she denied it; so on Friday dawn she went into labor, and delivered herself in a room where she slept with her child.”
According to him, “She took the newborn baby into a nearby cocoa farm, slashed the throat and dumped him in the bush. The family became suspicious that the girl had delivered but the baby was missing. Elders in the community were informed, and she was impressed to show the whereabouts of the baby, but she refused.
Mr. Owusu said the youth of the community then mounted a search and later found the lifeless body of the baby and also handed the teenager to the police.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Akyem Edubiase