KAI rescues baby at Lagos junkyard two weeks after finding nursing mothers at same site

• KAI operatives rescued a baby from the Alakija Junkyard during a cleanup operation.

• No family member or guardian has come forward to claim the child at the time of reporting.

• The rescue came two weeks after four nursing mothers and their babies were found living in poor conditions along the same corridor.

Operatives of the Lagos Environmental Sanitation Corps, popularly known as KAI, have rescued a baby from the Alakija Junkyard along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, in what marks the second significant child rescue along the same corridor in two weeks.

The rescue was carried out on Wednesday, August 26, during an ongoing multi-agency cleanup of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway corridor. A video circulating online shows KAI operatives visibly relieved after recovering the child from the junkyard.

No family member or guardian has come forward to claim the child, and the whereabouts of the baby's mother remain unknown at the time of writing.

The development comes two weeks after KAI operatives made a similarly disturbing discovery at an illegal dumpsite in the Agboju area of the same expressway corridor on August 10, where four nursing mothers were found living with their babies under what the agency described as inhumane conditions.

Among those rescued in the earlier operation was a nine-day-old newborn. The four women, aged between 20 and 25 and from different states including Kwara, Ondo, Anambra and Imo, were found living amid refuse and poor air quality with limited access to basic necessities.

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LAGESC Corps Marshal Major Olaniyi Cole had at the time urged parents and guardians to pay greater attention to the welfare of young people, warning that child neglect and maltreatment could lead to vulnerable individuals ending up on the streets.

The back-to-back discoveries along the Lagos-Badagry corridor have raised questions about the scale of vulnerability being uncovered as the multi-agency cleanup operation continues, and what the findings reveal about the living conditions of some of the city's most marginalised residents.

LAGESC has not issued an official statement on Wednesday's rescue at the time of writing.