A man from Ukraine is accused of collecting his little girl from an orphanage only to abandon her at a rubbish dump months later.
Authorities have launched an investigation after a young child is believed to have spent Christmas living in a tent used by homeless people on the tip, as she searched for scraps to eat on a dump in Odessa, south-central Ukraine.
The child, who is known only as Anastasia, was reportedly spotted at the dump several days prior to police finding her on December 30. On finding the little girl, police handed her over to social workers, who took her back to the care home.
Police are also trying to get to the bottom of why the three homeless people living in the tent hadn’t reported her to the authorities.
Children’s worker Nata Samokhina, who eventually discovered the girl, said:
It is incredible how many people passed by and did not pay attention to her, none of them called the police.
Samokhina went on to say the girl’s biological father had collected her from the orphanage in June 2019, before deciding she was simply too much work for him and abandoning her at the dump.
Valentina Kartasheva, who works at the orphanage and has cared for Anastasia, said:
We did not want to give her to him, we had a feeling. But we had to obey the law.
Thank God she is alive. She is currently in a state of shock.
Kartasheva added that, once Anastasia had undergone all the necessary medical checks, she would be taken back to be among her friends at the children’s home.
The orphanage confirmed it would be doing everything to ensure the girl’s father loses his parental rights so he cannot attempt to claim her again. It’s not known how old Anastasia is and the identity of her biological father has not been revealed.
It comes after a ‘bored’ mother allegedly tried to smother her five-month-old son with a pillow after his crying distracted her from drinking vodka. The anonymous 33-year-old woman is believed to have attempted to kill her son in a children’s hospital in the same Ukranian city, Odessa.
On December 1, the new mother is believed to have been secretly drinking vodka in her hospital bed when her son woke up and began crying.
During a police interview, the woman is said to have told police she ‘drank vodka because she was bored’ and that ‘she became irritated after the baby woke her up and distracted her’.
A police spokesperson said:
A woman who was occupying the same ward saw the suspect’s attempt to smother her son with a pillow.
The witness pushed the suspect away from the crib and alarmed the hospital staff who called the police.
Police arrested the woman for the attempted murder of a minor and the child was taken to an orphanage in the city.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.