Child protection services have taken an abandoned baby into custody yesterday after the child’s mother asked a teenager to hold him and then disappeared.

The woman disembarked a minibus at West Front Road and dropped the baby off with the teenager, saying she was seeking a friend called, “Lulu” and that the child was hindering the search. The teenager said yesterday that she accepted the baby believing the woman’s story, but raised an alarm hours after the woman failed to return. “She just dropped the boy with me and disappear,” the teenager told Stabroek News yesterday.

She recalled feeding the boy twice before taking him to the West Ruimveldt police outpost. The child, who looked about six months, was awake when the teenager and her mother dropped him off at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security yesterday. However, the teenager said that he had slept for the most of the day.

Director of the Child Protection Agency Ann Greene quickly arranged for the child to be placed within the ministry’s custody yesterday.

She noted that children that young are often cared for at the Red Cross Convales-cent home, adding that the baby will remain in institutional care while an investigation is carried ou.

The incident occurred at around 11 am and the teenager and her mother decided to take the baby to the station at around 3 pm.
The older woman said yesterday that the police had asked her to keep the baby to see whether the mother would return but she declined. They were later directed to the ministry.

“I have twelve, I can’t take another one,” the woman related while at the Ministry.  She said that while the family is sympathetic to the child’s plight they are currently not in a position to offer him the care he needs.