Baby burnt in fire mum started

National

A mother in the Begesin area of Madang last week accidently caused her baby sleeping in a bilum to be badly burnt in a bush fire she started.
According to Lutheran Church pastor Tommy Kawaipa from the area, who is also the church representative in the Usino-Bundi district development authority, the mother took her
baby with her to the garden last Wednesday.
Kawaipa said she put her sleeping baby boy in a bilum and hung him on a small tree on the top of a hill and went down the slope to work in her garden.
He said the mother set fire to dry grasses and leaves and eventually the fire spread up the slope to where the baby was asleep.
“She forgot all about the baby and the fire until she heard her baby’s cry,” Kawaipa said.
The fire melted the nylon ropes of the bilum and the baby fell out and rolled down through the burning slope. His cries alerted the mother’.
Kawaipa said the woman rushed to her baby and found him badly burnt and rushed him to Begesin aid post where he was treated.
“The baby didn’t die but one side of him was badly burnt,” Kawaipa said.