A man has been arrested by Nigerian police for burying his 2-month-old daughter alive.
Twenty-five-year-old Macaulay Onitcha went into some bushes and dug a shallow grave before throwing his baby daughter, Edna, into the hole and covering it with sand. Fortunately for the infant, someone witnessed her father burying her in the sand and unburied her after overpowering Onitcha.
The good Samaritan, Saturday Ekama, took the baby to the police station to report the incident. Edna had a neck injury and is currently being treated at Saint Francis Hospital in Asaba. Her father is being held in police custody at the State Criminal Investigation Department.
Onitcha told police that he had been trying to kill his daughter since she was born because his wife refused to have sex with him. Onitcha apologized for trying to bury Edna and said he did it out of anger.
While the article states that Edna is 2-months-old (4-months-old in certain sources) photographs seem to indicate that she is much closer to a couple of days to no more than two weeks old. However, the fact that there are photographs has also raised some questions about why someone would take pictures of the baby before pulling her out of the sand.
Some have speculated that the person who took the pictures believed the child was dead and had taken the photographs as evidence against the father. It is unclear at this time whether that was the photographer’s motivation.
The photos below may be disturbing to some readers.
What do you think should happen to baby Edna’s father?