Thaindian News

Rio de Janeiro, Dec 30 (IANS/EFE) A two-year-old Brazilian boy is recovering after a third operation to remove sewing needles that his stepfather has confessed to inserting into his body, doctors said.
The boy is in intensive care at a hospital in Salvador, the capital of the eastern state of Bahia. He is already breathing normally and able to eat without feeding tubes, according to a medical bulletin Tuesday.

Doctors performed a four-hour operation Monday night to remove needles that posed a significant risk to his health, including one that had been inserted between his sixth and seventh vertebrae, near the bone marrow.

Two other needles were removed Monday night from his left clavicle and another from his left armpit, bringing to 22 the total number extracted in three operations.

Doctors said the boy could be released in two weeks and said it won’t be necessary to extract 10 remaining needles stuck in his legs because they do not pose a significant threat to the toddler’s life.

The boy has had needles removed from his bladder, stomach, one of his lungs, near his heart and other parts of his body.

Police in Bahia state have filed attempted murder charges against the boy’s stepfather, Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, and his girlfriend, Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos, who allegedly were performing a black magic ritual.

Magalhaes told a television programme that he stuck needles into the boy several times per week over a period of a month - using wine to drug his victim - as part of an attempt to exact revenge on the boy’s mother.

The needles were discovered Dec 15, when the boy’s mother, Maria Souza Santos, took him to a hospital in the eastern city of Barreirinhas after he complained of stomach pains.

The doctors were perplexed over the large number of needles inside the boy - initially it was estimated that there were as many as 50 - and the apparent lack of an explanation for why they were there.

–IANS/EFE

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