By Salim Yunusa
A newborn baby boy was, on Saturday, found dead at a dump site in front of a primary school in Okaka community, Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
According to residents of the area, the baby must have been abandoned by the mother in the night for lack of resources to carter for the child.
Some residents of the area told reporters that residents, who went early in the morning to dump refuse at the dump site, saw the baby wrapped in an Ankara wrapper and was crying helplessly.
According to them, the first person that saw the child raised the alarm which attracted a crowd from the neighbourhood, but no help came as the child was already dying from the cold and the rain of the previous night.
They said the child was confirmed dead later, as he stopped crying.
Men of the Bayelsa State Environmental Sanitation Authority (BESA), who were monitoring the monthly sanitation exercise in the state, visited the scene of the incident and condemned such an act.
The Director of Waste Management, BESA, Comrade Ebitto Alazigha, who led the monitoring team, enjoined residents to always monitor their neighbours on what they take to dump sites.
He said that the authority would put measures in place to check such menace in the future.
Chairperson of the Bayelsa State Gender Response Team (GRT) and founder, Do-Foundation, Barr. Dise Ogbise, blamed the ugly development on poverty and promiscuity amongst young girls, urging young women who have difficulties in taking care of their babies to contact her office rather than taking innocent lives.
Describing the act as illegal, she warned that if the perpetrators are caught, they would be arrested for murder, prosecuted and jailed.
Police spokesman in Bayelsa State, SP Asinim Butswat, confirmed the incident, saying the command had already contacted the sanitation authority to evacuate the corpse of the child.
He said the Police are investigating the incident.
(Daily Trust)
