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Newborn found dumped inside bag behind Venice bins

A newborn baby boy was saved from almost certain death after a woman found him inside a plastic bag by her neighbourhood rubbish bins.

Published: 20 June 2016 15:41 CEST

Newborn found dumped inside bag behind Venice bins

The newborn was found next to a set of bins. Photo: IndeZènt/Flickr

The woman found the crying child with its umbilical cord still attached as she threw out her rubbish on Sunday evening, in the town of Santa Maria di Sala, near Venice, Rai News reported.

She initially mistook the child's cries for those of a cat and began searching around the bins to see if there was an animal in trouble. She eventually found the plastic bag containing the newborn behind the bins.

The woman immediately called the emergency services, who took the boy to Dolo hospital. In spite of his ordeal, the child is in perfect health and hospital staff have named him 'Attilio'.

Police suspect the child was abandoned by his mother and are investigating the incident. If nobody comes forward to claim the child within 10 days, the boy will automatically be put up for adoption.

“Throwing a newborn baby in the bin is a defeat for humanity,” Gian Luigi Gigli, president of the Italian pro-life group, Movement for Life, told Andkronos.

“We need to do more to offer alternatives to abandonment, such as informing people about the ability to give birth anonymously in Italian hospitals.”

In June 2015, a baby girl was found abandoned at a different set of rubbish bins in Santa Maria di Sala by a passing nun.

A cruise ship in St Mark's Basin, Venice.

The decision to limit cruise ship access to the Venice lagoon has come at a cost. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The new rules, which took effect in August, followed years of warnings that the giant floating hotels risked causing irreparable damage to the lagoon city, a UNESCO world heritage site.

READ ALSO: Venice bans large cruise ships from centre after Unesco threat of ‘endangered’ status

Some 30 million euros has been allocated for 2021 for shipping companies who incurred costs in “rescheduling routes and refunding passengers who cancelled trips”, the infrastructure ministry said in a statement.

A further 27.5 million euros – five million this year and the rest in 2022 – was allocated for the terminal operator and related companies, it said.

The decision to ban large cruise ships from the centre of Venice in July came just days before a meeting of the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco, which had proposed adding Venice to a list of endangered heritage sites over inaction on cruise ships.

READ ALSO: Is Venice really banning cruise ships from its lagoon?

Under the government’s plan, cruise ships will not be banned from Venice altogether but the biggest vessels will no longer be able to pass through St Mark’s Basin, St Mark’s Canal or the Giudecca Canal. Instead, they’ll be diverted to the industrial port at Marghera.

But critics of the plan point out that Marghera – which is on the mainland, as opposed to the passenger terminal located in the islands – is still within the Venice lagoon.

Some aspects of the plan remain unclear, as infrastructure at Marghera is still being built. Meanwhile, smaller cruise liners are still allowed through St Mark’s and the Giudecca canals.

Cruise ships provide a huge economic boost to Venice, but activists and residents say the ships contribute to problems caused by ‘overtourism’ and cause large waves that undermine the city’s foundations and harm the fragile ecosystem of its lagoon.

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