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 News from Around the Americas | January 2006 
Brazilians Race to Adopt Abandoned Baby
 Peter Muello - Associated Press
| | A video taken by an amateur cameraman shows a man rescuing a baby from a lake in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. | 
| | Dozens of people mobbed the hospital, hoping to adopt or just catch a glimpse of the infant. (Photos: AP/Rodrigo Clemente) |
Doctors released a 2-month-old girl from a hospital Monday, two days after she was found in a black plastic bag floating in a lake in southeastern Brazil.
Scores of Brazilians mobbed the Odilion Behrens Municipal Hospital hoping to adopt or at least catch a glimpse of the child whose dramatic rescue was filmed by an amateur cameraman and broadcast worldwide.
Authorities said it was the same Belo Horizonte hospital where the infant was born prematurely two months ago, which helped authorities locate the mother, who allegedly set her adrift on nearby Pampulha Lake.
The baby was released into the care of local child-protection authorities.
"She's doing great, in perfect health," said Rosana Alves, a hospital spokeswoman. "Now the Juvenile Court will decide whether she goes to a family or to a shelter."
Alves said the commotion over the infant and the flood of adoption offers had interfered with hospital routine.
"There were too many to count," she said. "Thank God it's over now."
Police arrested the baby's mother, 27-year-old Simone Cassiano da Silva, on Sunday and charged her with attempted homicide for putting the baby into the plastic bag, setting it on a board and pushing it into the lake.
Da Silva denied she set the child adrift. She claimed she gave the baby to a group of homeless people because she did not have enough money to raise the child.
"I couldn't stay with her," da Silva said. "I did not have a minimum psychological condition to stay with her. ... I asked them to leave the baby in some place for me, because I did not want to see it."
But Minas Gerais state police Inspector Helcio Sa Bernardes said the mother had lied to police.
"All the addresses she gave us are false," he said. "So we are following the investigations but this is already an indication she premeditated this situation."
Da Silva was arrested after nurses at the hospital told police the child had been born there and stayed in the maternity ward for two months.
On Saturday morning, the mother picked the baby up from the hospital and allegedly took a taxi to the lake, where the baby was later found, authorities said.
Police arrested Da Silva in front of her boyfriend's house carrying a bag and hailing a taxi. Police said they believe she was getting ready to flee.
The video footage broadcast first on Brazilian television and then worldwide showed rescuers using a tree branch to reach the black plastic bag attached to a plank, floating in the lake.
Two men were shown placing the bag on the ground and untying it, where they found the baby inside, wearing a pink dress. One man scooped her up and ran up a hill, where other people removed the girl's soaked clothing and wrapped her in a blanket.
"I heard what sounded like a cat," Jose da Cruz told Globo TV. "Then the noise was increasing and it caught my attention."
The wooden board attached to the bag apparently kept it from sinking in the lake, 210 miles north of Rio de Janeiro.
Later, television showed the baby girl being fed with a bottle by a nurse.
The child was not registered or named, but the mother told the media she had wanted to name her Iara — the deity of waters, in Brazilian Indian belief. |
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