Judge orders exhumation in possible ‘stolen baby’ case

A MALAGA judge has ordered the exhumation of the body of a baby to determine whether it is the daughter of a couple told 30 years ago that she had died at birth.

The family, from Rincon de la Victoria, reported the case to Malaga Public Prosecutor in May this year and has asked for DNA tests to be carried out.

The pregnancy went ahead without complications, and although a caesarean section was carried out, the baby was born alive in 1981. The mother explains that the doctor left with the baby girl in his arms, and showed it to her relatives but explained that she was dead. They only saw the baby’s face and were never allowed to see the body.

This made them suspicious, and now, years later, having seen the number of reports throughout Spain regarding ‘stolen babies’, they decided to investigate further.

The difference between this case and the others is that the location where the baby was buried is known, which will allow for exhumation and DNA testing to determine whether it was their daughter.

In Malaga alone there have been some 80 reports of possible ‘stolen babies’, most of them from the 60s and 70s, from families with limited resources. Most of the babies were born at the Civil Hospital, although there are some reports of babies born at Carlos Haya and the hospitals in Ronda and Antequera. Many documents from the Civil Hospital were lost in floods in the eighties.