The body of a baby has been discovered at a recycling facility in south Auckland, New Zealand police have said.
The baby, believed to be a newborn, was discovered at the plant in the suburb of Onehunga on Monday evening, detective inspector Scott Beard said in a statement.
He said the police’s priority was to find the mother, saying police were “extremely concerned for her welfare,” and called for the public to come forward with information.
“Numerous enquiries are underway and the priority for police is to identify and locate the mother of the child. We are extremely concerned for her welfare. Police believe the baby is a newborn and so we are worried that the mother needs urgent medical attention,” he said.
“We have already made enquiries with hospitals and will continue to work closely with them.”
A postmortem is to be carried out on Wednesday.
“These types of investigations can be extremely complex and police has a significant amount of work to undertake to try and establish how the baby has come to be at the facility. This will involve going through hours’ worth of CCTV footage,” Scott added.
“What would assist police greatly is for anyone who knows anything about this baby or the mother of the child to contact us urgently. We have teams of specialist staff and this will be treated sensitively and with respect.”
In New Zealand, Lifeline can be reached at 0800 LIFELINE (0800 543 354) or send a text to HELP (4357). The Suicide Crisis Helpline is available on 0508 828 865.
