249 unregistered babies confirmed dead; status of 814 still unclear
gettyimagesbankBy Jun Ji-hyeThe government has confirmed 249 babies without any record of registration have died since 2015 because of health problems or crimes committed by their guardians. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the results of its probe into the status of 2,123 babies who were born from 2015 until last year and were not registered despite records of being delivered at a hospital.Among them, 249, or 11.7 percent, are confirmed to have died. The deaths of 222 were confirmed by local governments, while police confirmed 27 more. Among these 27, seven were confirmed to have died because of criminally punishable acts such as child abandonment, leading police to refer the cases to the prosecution. The ministry confirmed the survival of 1,025 babies, while police are continuing their investigation into 814 more whose statuses have not yet been verified.The ministry noted that the remaining 35 were cases of paperwork errors made by medical institutes such as granting temporary registration numbers to newborns even in cases of miscarriage.The investigation w
