![A woman in her 30s accused of neglecting her six-day-old newborn to death and dumping the baby's body in 2018 heads to the Gwangju District Court for an arrest warrant hearing. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2023/07/10/9d4f594a-7b7f-42f6-9995-16638520895b.jpg)
Police are investigating nearly 1,000 unregistered babies, or “ghost babies” in the country.
The National Police Agency on Monday said it received a total of 1,069 ghost baby cases as of 5 p.m. Friday.
Of them, 939 are under investigation, the police said.Police confirmed 34 deaths in the reported cases.
A mother accused of neglecting her six-day-old newborn to death and dumping the body in a trash bin in Gwangju five years ago has been arrested on Saturday.
A court on the same day issued arrest warrants for a father and a grandmother suspected of murdering a baby boy and dumping the body on a hill in Yongin, Gyeonggi, in 2015.
The baby boy had Down’s syndrome.
Police on Monday said they are tracking the whereabouts of 782 other newborns.
Police have been expanding the scope of the investigation across the country as local governments conducted a complete inspection on undocumented baby cases through last Friday.
BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]
