Police in Berlin have arrested a 14-year-old girl suspected of being the mother of a newborn found dead in a housing estate courtyard in the city's southwest. The teenager has been placed in hospital care and may have been experiencing a psychological crisis, authorities said.
A passerby discovered the infant's body on Tuesday morning in a courtyard on Réaumurstraße in Lichterfelde, a neighborhood in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district. Emergency services were alerted at 9:37 a.m. on July 8. The baby, whose umbilical cord was still attached, was estimated to have been born only hours earlier. An autopsy has been ordered.
The homicide commission and forensic technicians are investigating the circumstances of the death. Police and firefighters initially launched a search for the mother before identifying the adolescent suspect.