Sri Lanka Baby - Couple await ruling on fate of tsunami Baby 81
NAME: SRI BABY 010205Nxx
TAPE: EF05/0102
IN_TIME: 10:33:07:24
DURATION: 00:03:13:22
SOURCES: APTN
DATELINE: Kalmunai - 31 Jan 2005
RESTRICTIONS:
SHOTLIST:
1. Various of baby in cot
2. Jenita Jeyarajah and M. Jeyarajah (couple claiming it is their baby) at the house damaged by tsunami
3. Stairs
4. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil) Jenita Jeyarajah, 25, claims to be mother:
"Although we have been granted permission to see the baby, the baby is not with us. We can't take him home. I feel really sad... There is no peace of mind."
5. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil) Murugupillai Jeyarajah, 31, claims to be father:
"God only knows what I am going through. Anyway we can see the baby twice a week. Between those times we cannot sleep at night thinking of him. I can't explain in words what I am going through."
6. Jeyarajahone and Jeyarajah standing together, Jeyarajah wiping his eyes
7. Rubble in front of beach
8. Jeyarajah walking through rubble
9. Jeyarajah and Jeyarajah
10. Nurse making baby food in a bottle
11. Various of baby being fed by bottle
12. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil) S. Rajeswaran, nurse:
"I am very happy to be with the child and we are taking very good care of him. I am praying that the baby goes to the correct parents. At the same time I don't want to let the baby go as I have become very attached to him. I will be very sad."
13. Various of Acting Medical Superintendent of the Base Hospital, Kalmunai, Doctor Kumuduni Thurairathnam talking to nurses
14. SOUNDBITE: (English) Doctor Kumuduni Thurairathnam, Acting Medical Superintendent of the Base Hospital, Kalmunai:
"We are giving milk and help, all the care we are giving. The baby is with us in our paediatric unit, so no problem. But these parents are getting problem they are coming always, coming and asking that child is ours, ours, ours..."
15. Hospital sign
16. Exterior of hospital
STORYLINE:
Jenita Jeyarajah said on Monday the hospital that she felt "really sad" that the infant boy she claims is her son is not with her and her husband.
She is waiting for a judge's ruling on Wednesday that the boy, whom she believes is her son Abilass, indeed belongs to her.
At the Base Hospital in Kalmunai on Sri Lanka's east coast, the three-month-old child has become known as Baby 81.
He was the 81st admission on 26 December 2004, the day a tsunami swept across the beaches of Sri Lanka and 11 other nations, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead and missing.
On that day, Jenita Jeyarajah has said, Abilass was ripped from her arms as the waves tore through her beach-front house.
Hospital officials said nine women initially claimed the baby, a heart-wrenching dilemma amid the chaos of those early days when parents were frantically searching for missing children.
One woman allegedly threatened suicide if she was not given custody. Since then, the frenzy has calmed.
Only Jenita Jeyarajah has filed a court case and registered herself with police as the mother.
A few couples who claimed to be Baby 81's parents still come regularly to the hospital, but they have not pursued their claims, police and hospital officials said.
On January 12, a court ordered the hospital to hand the baby to Jenita Jeyarajah temporarily until his parentage could be determined.
But the doctors, who said they were concerned over rival claims, refused, arguing the child still needed medical attention, according to court documents seen by The Associated Press.
The court is to convene again on Wednesday and may order a DNA test to test Jenita Jeyarajah's claim.
She lost all her family records in the tsunami.
No other claimant than Jenita Jeyarajah is expected to testify in court.
Any other claimant would first need to lodge a police report.
The head doctor at the hospital will also likely take the stand.
In the meantime, doctors allow Jenita Jeyarajah to visit the boy twice a week, on condition that she not lift him from his crib.
Jenita Jeyarajah has sent a letter to Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, appealing for her intervention.
The letter was written by her elderly neighbour, Samithamby Sri Skandarajah, who said he found the child caked in mud on the beach around 6 p.m. (1200 GMT), about nine hours after the tsunami slammed into Sri Lanka's eastern shore.
According to Skandarajah, he took the child to the hospital.
The boy was later taken to the home of a nurse and returned to the hospital only after he threatened legal action.
He gave no explanation for the hospital's action or timing of the events.
Hospital officials have declined to comment on the letter. Officials at the president's office could not immediately confirm having received it.
According to Jeyarajah, the baby was born in the same Kalmunai hospital 19 October.