A 3-year-old boy is struggling intubated for his life in a hospital in Heraklio, Crete, still on Monday with doctors warning of a critical and irreversible health condition. The toddler has systematically been tortured by his mother and her partner in the last three months.
The boy was in coma when neighbors found it outside the home on Sunday.
In hospital, doctors found a serious head injury, blood clots in the brain and stomach as well as old bruises, contusions and marks from cigarette burns.
The child was reportedly found bleeding outside the house by a neighbor who called the ambulance service and the police and alerted the neighborhood..
According to local media, the mother and her partner were apparently shouting at the boy “wake up, wake up” but the boy was already unconscious having received blows to the head and the abdomen.
The boy’s mother, 26, and her 44-year-old partner have been arrested and face charges of attempted murder, bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, exposure and domestic violence against a minor.
Media reported that the woman who was living in Athens and moved with her child to Heraklio to live together with a man she met online in October 2024.
During a search of the couple’s home in Theriso, police reportedly found and seized an air rifle, a shotgun part, a wooden bat and prescription-only narcotic pills.
The 26-year-old woman and her partner were taken to prosecutor on Monday morning and local media noted that the mother appeared to be “significantly indifferent.”
Crowd gathered outside the court has been swearing at both of them, demanding their punishment. via neakriti.
The two accuse each other for the abuse, while police investigation continues into the role of both the mother and her partner in the boy’s abuse. It has not yet been clarified which of the two committed these horrific acts or if they acted together.
The 44-year-old man, who is a drug addict, was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife in 2022. A lawyer hired by a relative to his defense has resigned on “ethical reasons” a few hours later.
The boy is brain dead, local media cretalive reported early Monday afternoon.
