Baby starves to death
2006-12-15 15:08
Erfurt - A ten-month-old baby boy has starved to death in his mother's apartment, German prosecutors said on Friday, in the latest case of child abuse to shock the country.
The child's two-year-old sister is being treated for dehydration in hospital after she was also found in the apartment in Sommerda, a town in the former communist east. Her life is not in danger.
The children's 20-year-old mother was arrested and was expected to appear in court on Friday, prosecutors in the nearby city of Erfurt said.
Neighbours told the local newspaper that social workers had often visited the four-room apartment, where the electricity had been cut off because the mother could not pay the bill.
Reports said the woman's partner had walked out in September.
The discovery is the latest in a string of similar cases in Germany this year.
Chancellor Angela Merkel called for stronger measures to protect children after a two-year-old boy was found dead in his heroin addict father's fridge in the northern city of Bremen in October.
In June, a woman was jailed for 15 years for killing eight of her newborn babies in a case which sparked soul-searching about a breakdown of social values in depressed areas of eastern Germany.
- AFP