A 21-year-old woman in the Hrodna region has been arrested on suspicion of fatally beating her small son.
The 18-month-old boy died from multiple head and abdomen injuries at the Voranava Central District Hospital on July 21. He had his skull trepanned, but the operation did not help save the child.
The woman, who previously faced several warnings about the termination of her parental rights, is in custody. She has one more son fathered by another man. Her current husband is serving his time in an open-type facility.
The small boy was found near the village of Ostryna in the Shchuchyn district where the woman lives after her mother reported to local police that three men wearing masks with slits for eyes snatched the boy at a bus stop and took him away on a black car on the evening of July 20, said the press office of the Hrodna regional police department.
The police launched an unsuccessful operation to hunt down the alleged abductors.
The boy was discovered after his three-year-old brother, initially supporting the abduction allegation, told "confidentially" to a police officer that his mother had thrown the child into nettles.
A sniffer dog helped find the boy, who was some 150 meters away from the village road. The child had been lying there for five hours.
The young woman has been charged with murder under Part Two of the Criminal Code’s Article 139.
