Egyptian police have charged a father with murdering his child by burying it alive in the desert, independent daily al- Masry al-Youm, reported Wednesday.
Police told the newspaper that the man, from the Egyptian town of Beni Suef, roughly 115 kilometres south of Cairo, had married a 24-year-old woman two years ago on the condition that she keep the marriage a secret and that she not bear him any children.
But when she got pregnant, the newspaper said, the man tried to force her to have an abortion. The mother refused and gave birth after seven months of pregnancy.
Police charged that the father said he would take the child to an incubator since it was born prematurely, but instead buried his child alive in the desert near Beni Suef.
Al-Masry al-Youm reported that the man is in custody, and that investigators have sent the baby’s body to a morgue for DNA testing.