Russian 'Jungle Book' girl adapting to daily
life
MOSCOW (AFP) - - A five-year-old girl Russian who was
shut away with dogs and cats is adapting to normal life after being
rescued and transferred to a clinic, doctors said Thursday.
The girl had apparently not been allowed outside the filthy
apartment in Eastern Siberia where she had been found living with
the animals, sparking comparisons with the character Mowgli from
the "Jungle Book".
"Everything is fine. Other medical tests will be carried out but
she is in good health," the director of the rehabilitation centre
Tatyana Missnik told the RIA Novosti news agency.
"The one problem is that at five years old she doesn't speak. We
don't know why."
Television pictures showed the dilapidated apartment where the
girl, identified only as Natasha, lived on the outskirts of the
Siberian city of Chita.
The battered door of the flat had a sign reading "Warning: She
Bites", presumably referring to one of the dogs.
Police announced Wednesday that child protection officers had
taken the girl into care at the "Nadezhda" (Hope) children's
rehabilitation centre.
Doctors said the girl pushed aside a spoon offered for eating,
preferring instead to lap up food.
Interfax news agency quoted a source at the centre as saying she
was already adapting to a normal environment.
"She only behaves like a cat or dog from time to time. She can
show how to put a pan on a stove and turn on the gas. You shouldn't
call her 'Mowgli'," the source said.
Meanwhile police said her father -- with whom Natasha had lived
-- had been briefly detained and could face a criminal
investigation.
"The father was detained, questioned and released. It is now
being decided whether to open a criminal investigation for
neglecting duties in the bringing up of a child," a police source
told RIA Novosti news agency.
Police had heard different versions of events from the father
and the mother, who went to the authorities herself on Wednesday,
the source added.
"The mother says that the father stole the girl from her. The
father said that the grandmother of his wife suggested he bring up
the girl himself, which he did."
Police dubbed the girl "Mowgli" in their statement Wednesday,
after the character who grew up among wolves in the children's book
by the Anglo-Indian writer Rudyard Kipling.
In March, President Dmitry Medvedev urged action on child abuse,
saying 760,000 children were living in "socially hazardous
conditions".
--AFP