Corpse of discarded baby in Dili partly eaten by dogs

ETLJB23 May 2013 - In a case that has shocked the nation, the body of a baby that was found discarded in the rubbish in a Dili suburb is believed to have been partly eaten by dogs.

The horrifying find was discovered in Bebonouk, Kampu Tuti at the Sao Miguel Clinic on Saturday 9th March at 9pm. The local community found the two-day-old baby in the garbage and then called the police.

The Head of the Crimes Investigation Service, Superintendent Calisto Gonzaga, was reported by The Dili Weekly on 30 April that when the police went to find the baby they found that the body of the baby was no longer intact and suspect that some of the body was eaten by a dog rendering it impossible to identify the sex of the baby.

“Now the body of the baby is in the mortuary for an autopsy in order to identify if the baby is a boy or a girl,” said Director Gonzaga. "Right now the investigation process is underway to identify who the mother of the baby is,” he added.

The Dili Weekly also reported that Member of Parliament Ilda Maria da Conceicao asked the police to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter in order to find out the identity of the baby's mother. “The police investigating must find out who threw this baby away,” said MP da Conceicao. The MP also appealed to other women not to act in this way because this attitude is truly against the commandments of Jesus and it is immoral.

There have been several other reports of discarded babies' bodies in Dili, as archived by the East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin. In January 2011, Televizaun Timor-Leste, reported on another case of a baby being abandoned. The report stated that the police had identified a woman who was suspected of abandoning her baby in Ailok Laran [Bairro Pite], a suburb of the Capital Dili  (although another report identified the location as Ruin Naklekar Sub-village).  TVTL also reported in that case that the baby's body had been brought to a resident's home by a dog after having been disposed of in another place. A local resident, Mari Fatima, at the time was reported as saying that "The dog brought the dead baby when I returned back from garden. I was sitting  on a tyre and was thinking that it was a chicken but the children said it is a baby when they went to it," Fatima said.


On 29 May 2009, RTTL reported on the discovery of a baby's body in the Dili suburb of Delta 3. 

In 2010, Suara Timor Lorosae reported comments by the Dili Diocese Bishop Monsignor Alberto Ricardo da Costa strongly condemning people who engage in killing and throwing away babies in the country.

The bishop said the people were inhuman, immoral and irresponsible and said such actions were against the country's culture. He called on the country's people to put hands together work for humanity and protecting children for a better future. Source: The Dili Weekly 30/04/2013, TVTL 20/01/2011 & 24/01/2011, Suara Timor Lorosae 04/06/2010 RTTL 29/05/2009. ETLJB Edited by Warren L. Wright