A newborn baby girl was found covered in bites and severe sunburn after being abandoned in an anthill by her mother, who now faces an attempted murder charge.
Nadezhda Sorokina, 32, from Russia, left the day-old girl in Milenino on July 23 before a horrified passerby spotted the screaming baby.
Nikolai Pakhomov found the newborn covered in painful ant bites and told local media he initially thought the baby’s cry was the meowing of kittens.
The 25-year-old said: “I automatically dialed 112 and called the paramedics.
‘I took off my shirt, wrapped the baby in it and carried her to the ambulance.’
A one-day-old baby was abandoned by her mother in an anthill in Russia
She was left with agonising bites and severe sunburn after the terrifying ordeal.
The newborn’s mother, Nadezhda Sorokina, 32, now faces a charge of attempted murder.
The doctors, who declared the newborn to be fine except for insect bites and sunburn, called a local priest who baptized little Maria Nikolaevna in honor of her savior.
Maria is in the care of local child services and a married couple is already waiting to adopt her, local media reported.
Police later located Sorokina, who now faces a charge of attempted murder.
The single mother of three reportedly confessed to giving birth to the girl on July 22 and then abandoning her because she could not afford to feed a fourth child.
However, a neighbour, Veronika Dokukina, claims that Sorokina may have decided to abandon the baby after breaking up with the girl’s father.
She said: “I have a little girl, one year old. I was giving her baby clothes and she said, ‘I don’t need them anymore.’”
I asked her what had happened and she replied, “It stressed me out so much that I got so nervous that I had a miscarriage.”
“It seems she didn’t have an abortion, she hid it. That means she planned it in advance.”
Pictured: Newborn Maria at the Kursk Regional Perinatal Center, Russia, July 29
Doctors rushed to save the baby after his mother abandoned him.
The single mother of three reportedly confessed to giving birth to the girl on July 22 and then abandoning her because she could not afford to feed a fourth child.
Nadezhda’s ex-husband, the father of her other children, claimed he was unaware of her actions.
She said she was never an exemplary mother, but she would never have imagined it.
This comes after a three-day-old baby was found eaten by ants after being abandoned in a remote forest in Russia in 2015.
Police began their investigation after a passerby discovered the badly bitten baby on the outskirts of Chelyabinsk in central Russia.
A police spokesman said at the time: ‘The person who found the girl heard her crying and upon investigation discovered the child was lying in a pile of leaves and covered in ants.
“It was clear the child had been abandoned and there was no one else in sight, so they picked her up and called an ambulance.”
The baby still had the umbilical cord attached when she was found by the man, who was on his way to work.