Seiyuuki
08-18-2003, 11:53 PM
LONDON - British soldiers searching for weapons in a house in southern Iraq rescued a newborn baby who had been closed into a padlocked ammunition box, the Ministry of Defense said Monday.
The two-day old girl appeared to have been in the three-foot-long box for about 10 minutes when two soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment found her in the house in the city of Basra.
The baby girl "appeared close to death," but was revived by Pvt. Damien Kenny, 18 and Pvt. Jonathan Hunt, 21, the ministry said.
Troops later located the infant's mother, and both were being taken to a local hospital. "It has been established that the baby had been born prematurely," a spokesman at the British command center in Basra said.
The mother told soldiers that the father put the child into the box, said Lt. Craig Rogers, who commanded the unit that found the baby.
Officials said it was not clear why the father did so, or if he sought to hide the child during the soldiers' raid.
The father was arrested, Rogers told London radio station LBC. Soldiers recovered assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition from the house, the military said.
British troops have been based in Basra, Iraq's second city, since the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein in April.
The two-day old girl appeared to have been in the three-foot-long box for about 10 minutes when two soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment found her in the house in the city of Basra.
The baby girl "appeared close to death," but was revived by Pvt. Damien Kenny, 18 and Pvt. Jonathan Hunt, 21, the ministry said.
Troops later located the infant's mother, and both were being taken to a local hospital. "It has been established that the baby had been born prematurely," a spokesman at the British command center in Basra said.
The mother told soldiers that the father put the child into the box, said Lt. Craig Rogers, who commanded the unit that found the baby.
Officials said it was not clear why the father did so, or if he sought to hide the child during the soldiers' raid.
The father was arrested, Rogers told London radio station LBC. Soldiers recovered assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition from the house, the military said.
British troops have been based in Basra, Iraq's second city, since the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein in April.