After their newborn baby boy was thrown out of a third-floor window of a maternity ward by another mother, the grieving parents have reacted.
They said they have forgiven their son’s killer and do not want her to be punished.
Viktoria Ivanova, 34, had just given birth to a baby boy on Monday, August 16, when Alina Araslanova, 29, walked over to her bed at a maternity hospital in the Russian city of Sterlitamak, grabbed her baby and threw it out the window.
The newborn boy, who was just a few hours old, hit the ground below and died instantly.
The alleged killer, a medical doctor, had just given birth earlier in the evening to her second girl when staff saw her walking over to Viktoria Ivanova’s bed.
Araslanova then allegedly picked up Ivanova’s newborn baby boy, given the name Volodya, walked over to a window and threw the baby to its death for no apparent reason.
Local media later reported that Araslanova had previously spent some time in a psychiatric hospital being treated for depression but had later been released.
It is not known what made the 29-year-old carry out the shocking act.
The Investigative Directorate said in a statement: “At present, a number of investigative and operational measures have been started to establish all the circumstances of the crime, as well as the reasons and conditions that led to it.”
Viktoria Ivanova and her husband Denis, a 36-year-old psychologist, already have two boys and Volodya would have been their third.
The father of the dead child said: “It is our will with my wife that this woman is forgiven, we do not want to punish her.”
He added: “She should be allowed to live her life happily. We have accepted everything, we do not want anyone to be punished.”
Speaking of her grief in the aftermath of baby Volodya’s death, Viktoria Ivanova said she and her husband had suffered “pain, despair, grief, and denial.”
She added: “We sobbed and couldn’t sleep at all.”
She said: “Sometimes I wanted to follow (my baby) out of the window.
“And then we realised that in such a short period our Volodya had taught us to value and love even more. Him, each other, and our children, and life in general.
“We do not hold evil, and forgive everyone, the maternity hospital, the doctors and this deranged woman who was with me in intensive care.”
On Sunday, August 22, six days after her son’s murder, she admitted her suffering has become even more acute.
She said: “The hardest thing is to wake up in the morning and realise this is the reality. I try to hold on for the sake of our children, but it doesn’t always work out.
“Sometimes it seems that I cannot cope and I want to surrender. This feeling will not disappear, I will have to live with this all my life.”
She continued: “I have been killed with my child, I will never be the same. My children are deprived of a loved one, a little brother.”
Alina Araslanova has undergone a psychiatric examination and the results are expected to decide whether she will be arrested or sent away for compulsory treatment.
Currently, her children are in the care of the authorities.
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