PENZA, August 19 (RIA Novosti) – A newborn baby boy, wrapped in a blanked inside a plastic bag, was found near the Theater for Young Audiences in the Volga area city of Penza on Monday, the regional police department said.
A woman who found the baby said she was passing by the theater when she heard a faint squeaking sound coming from a plastic bag lying on the ground near a garbage container.
“I thought someone had left kittens there. But when I approached, I saw a baby,” the woman, Valentina Konovalova, told the local Express TV channel.
The PenzaInform news site quoted doctors as saying that the newborn boy was “very weak” and his condition was moderately critical. A search for his mother is under way.
In November 2011, Russian officials announced plans to install so-called baby boxes for mothers to anonymously drop off unwanted newborns in sanitary conditions, rather than "having them left in garbage containers."
According to the Change One Life charity organization for orphans, baby boxes have been installed in 11 Russian cities as of December 2011.
