Two-headed baby dies after family take him home because they are too poor to keep him in hospital



A baby with two heads has died because his parents could not afford to pay for his medical care.

The boy, named Kiron, was born on Monday to a 22-year-old mother in the Bangladesh town of Keshobpur .

When word spread, a huge crowd of at least 150,000 people surrounded the hospital hoping to see him.

Doctors said they could raise the money to take him 100 miles to the capital Dhaka , but warned there would be ongoing medical costs.

Doomed: Two-headed Kiron, born in Bangladesh, in hospital in Jessore as doctors tried to determine his fate

Kiron's poverty-stricken parents said they could not afford further treatment, and against the advice of doctors took him home to their village near Keshobpur.

There the child, who at first seemed healthy, developed a fever and died.

Privately, doctors said it would have been a miserable life for Kiron had he overcome his initial medical problems.

'Perhaps it was God's will that he passed away,' said one.

'We wanted to refer him to a hospital in Dhaka but the family was so poor that they could not afford to take him there, so they took him home where he died,' paediatrician K S Alam told the AFP news agency.

Officials feared that unless the baby was moved from the clinic in Bangladesh, where he was born, to a more secure hospital, the crowd would force their way in to gaze at the amazing sight.

If that happened, it was feared, mother and baby would be crushed.

Riot police guard the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, during a strike in 2001. Police were called in to protect the newborn baby

In the past, babies born with physical abnormalities have been viewed in countries such as Bangladesh and India as living gods.

Kiron was born in a caesarean operation on Monday, weighing just over 12lb, in Keshobpur, 100 miles from the capital, Dhaka.

Newspaper Samakal said many well-wishers had left money for the baby's family.