A one-month-old Chinese boy was deserted under a remote bridge in central China’s Henan Province, leaving him on the brink of death and under attack from insects.
The child suffered horrific bites on his face before he was found by police on May 30, 163.com reported. He was taken to a hospital in Xiping county, central China’s Henan Province where he is being treated.
The child was reported to be around one month old.
He was discovered under a bridge at remote Xiluo Motorway in Huancheng town, wrapped in a blanket.
“The baby is so poor. He had so many bites on his face. I don’t understand what his parents were thinking,” one anonymous user wrote on social media, according to MailOnline.
“My child is nearly eight months old. I teared up when I saw these pictures,” said another. “I’m a man, but any father would understand why I feel this way. How can any parents be so cold-hearted and do such a thing?”
China has long had problems with parents abandoning their babies. About 100,000 Chinese newborns are abandoned by their parents every year, according to a report in Beijing Today. Most of the children have disabilities or diseases.
The problem likely stems from China’s rigid one-child policy, which restricted Chinese families from having more than one child.
“Unwanted babies are a common occurrence every day in China, where parents leave their newborn infants by the side of dirty sidewalks, on unhygienic storefronts, or in overflowing dumpsters without any explanation, in the hopes that the government will find and take care of them. Despite the illegal nature and harsh repercussions of child abandonment, parents feel they have no other choice if they want their child to have the best care possible,” writes the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s law blog.
The International China Concern, an organization dedicated to “China’s abandoned and disabled,” also states that “children with disabilities are abandoned every day in all parts of the country.”
