Two parents killed their children in separate cases over Christmas, German police said on Wednesday, the latest of a series of infanticides that have shocked the country and forced the government to act to improve child-welfare and social services.
In one, a father killed his eight-year-old son before committing suicide whilst a second incident saw a mother confess to killing her two toddler sons, said police in the southern state of Bavaria, where both incidents took place.
The first case saw a 43-year old computer programmer in Munich kill his son before suffocating himself with a plastic bag on the child's bed in what appeared to be a row with his divorced wife over custody access, according to police.
The bodies were found on Christmas day.
In the second a mother admitted to killing her infant sons after the grandmother found the children, aged two and three, dead in the bath, said police. Their mother was sitting in another room.
Officers arrested the 37-year-old mother on Christmas Day in the town of Beratzhausen, near Regensburg. The children's faces and necks bore signs of violence.
The mother had already confessed to the killings but had so far offered no explanation, said police. She was due to appear in court on Wednesday.
The father, 45, who was at work at the time the children were killed, has been ruled out as a suspect.
The two cases are the latest in a series of recent infanticides that have shocked Germany and prompted a series of federal measures to improve social services and child welfare.
Last Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel approved a raft of measures to protect families, at a crisis meeting over a series of grisly child murders at the hands of parents.
Merkel and the leaders of Germany's 16 states approved a plan of action allowing the authorities to take swifter action when child neglect or abuse are suspected. The new package also requires regular checkups for babies and toddlers and obliges doctors to report suspicious cases.
A national database of records on child welfare is also planned, compiling information from health care providers, child protection services, social welfare offices, family courts and the police.
Earlier this month police found the bodies of five brothers, aged three to nine, in a home in Darry after their 31-year-old mother confessed to a psychiatrist that she had killed them.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to