A stray dog was found carrying an abandoned baby girl who had been ditched inside a garbage bag left outside a municipal building in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli on Wednesday.
A passerby heard the stifled cries of the baby coming from inside the black trash bag, which was being held in the dog’s mouth, and sprang into action.
She was first taken to the Islamic Hospital by a bystander before being transferred to the Tripoli Government Hospital.
Pictures circulating online show the infant with abrasions and red br*uises across her entire face and body.
There have been conflicting reports on the baby’s age.
Some accounts stated that she was believed to be about 4 months old, while others claimed she had been born mere hours before being abandoned.
As word spread online of the baby’s miraculous recovery, many social media users were quick to offer to adopt the child.
“Some say that the dog is an unclean animal and, of course, this is not true,” one commentator tweeted.
“The dog has much more humanity, kindness, cunning, and intelligence than some satanic mutants in human form,” he said.
“Animals have more compassion than humans,” tweeted another.
Ghassan Rifi, a journalist in Tripoli, questioned the intentions of the person who abandoned the baby, writing online in Arabic, “It was not known whether the ‘wild lady’ who threw the child and fled to an unknown destination had intended to throw her in the area so that the dogs would finish her off and eat her corpse or to draw attention to her.”
“But in all cases, the dog that dragged her was more humane in the face of the b*rutality and cri*minality of the one who threw her.”
The little girl’s condition was described by local media as serious but stable.
The hospital did not provide additional information as Wednesday was the start of the Islamic New Year, meaning public institutions are shuttered for celebration.
Police were investigating the incident and searching for the baby’s abandoners.
