Germans worry about child abuse
2007-12-07 16:07
Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a national crisis meeting on child care amid an outcry over the killing of five boys by their mentally disturbed mother, the government said on Friday.
"There is boundless sadness and anger about this," deputy government spokesperson Thomas Steg told reporters.
"The question has to be asked whether we are doing enough and whether what we are doing is effective enough," he said.
The meeting will take place on December 19 and will gather the premiers and family ministers of Germany's 16 regional states.
Police on Wednesday found the bodies of five brothers, aged three to nine, in a home in the northern hamlet of Darry after their 31-year-old mother confessed to a psychiatrist that she had killed them.
Investigators said they believe she gave the children tranquillisers before suffocating them with plastic bags.
The local municipality conceded that social workers had been in contact with the family since August and knew that the woman was plagued by religious fantasies, but had failed to foresee the tragedy.
The grim discovery in Darry came a day after police arrested a woman in Plauen in eastern Germany on suspicion of killing three babies in recent years, in each case shortly after giving birth to the child.
The bodies of the three newborn baby girls were found hidden in a trunk, in a freezer and on the balcony of her apartment.
On Friday, police said they have also found a dead baby in Berlin and another in Nordhausen in eastern Germany, but did not suspect murder in either case.
They found the six-week-old infant in Berlin's working class district of Wedding next to the corpse of her mother, a 24-year-old drug addict.
The woman had been ill and in regular contact with welfare services, who called the police on Thursday when she failed to open the door for a routine visit.
In Nordhausen, a newborn baby girl was found dead a while after her 27-year-old mother gave birth to her in the bath.
Authorities said the infant was rushed to hospital but it was too late to revive her.
The tragedy in Darry was the latest in a string of deadly family dramas that have prompted Germans to ask whether the state is failing to help overwhelmed parents.
In 2006, an unemployed woman was sentenced to 15 years in jail for leaving eight newborn babies to die before hiding their remains in buckets and flowerpots in Germany's worst post-war infanticide case.
- SAPA