Newborn baby found in North Creek Canal
Posted: 19/03/2007 - 09:49 PM
Author: Keisha Milligan
“It is definitely immoral, heartless and cruel! I cannot think how the mother could have just thrown the baby boy into the canal,” said Kendra, a neighborhood resident of North Creek, off Central American Boulevard.
Kendra’s angry and bewildered words came after the discovery of a baby boy was made near her home in the North Creek Canal on Saturday morning. The baby, who had his umbilical cord still attached, was found face down, tangled between some dried grass at the edge of the water by a sanitation worker who was cleaning the north side of the creek.
Police say they are looking for the person who dumped the newborn baby into the swamp. They say that medical authorities are trying to determine if the child was still alive when it was abandoned, or if in fact, it was still-born.
The alarming discovery had the entire North Creek community out of their homes within minutes, and angry, at that.
Amandala today spoke with the man who made the gruesome discovery, sanitation worker at Belize Maintenance League (BML) - Noel Ebanks, 63. Ebanks said that he could not believe his eyes when he first saw the child.
He cleans the North and South Creeks alternately, a day in and a day out, said Ebanks. The last time he cleaned the North Creek was on Thursday, March 15. He is certain that the child was not there then.
On Friday he cleaned the South Creek from end to end, filling about 25 garbage bags, and the child was not on that side. If the child was thrown on North Creek, then it had to be thrown either on Thursday night, Friday in the day, which is not likely, or more likely, on Friday night.
He arrived at North Creek and began cleaning sometime around 9:00 a.m. He had not even cleaned for twenty minutes on that side when he saw the baby, who at first appeared to be a doll.
When he saw the ears and the umbilical cord, however, he knew that it was a baby, which was definitely dead.
Ebanks quickly left, notified a neighbor and called the police. The police took a short while to come, he said, but when they got there they asked him to remove the baby.
When the child was placed on the surface, you could see that it was a boy. The baby’s back was sunburnt, which meant that it had to be out in the sun for a while, said Ebanks. The baby was already beginning to decompose.
Did the mother throw the child herself? Was it a friend who did it? Whatever way it was done, it is just unimaginable, said Kendra.
Police are asking anyone with information on this incident to call the nearest police station.
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