'Feral' child barks and hisses after being raised as a pet

A "feral" five-year-old girl who hisses and barks after being forced by her family to live as one of their many pets has been rescued from a home in far eastern Russia.

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow

According to police, the child, who has only been identified as "Natasha", was so neglected that she had barely developed a human vocabulary, communicating instead through animal noises.

Although she lived with her father, grandparents and other relatives, Natasha was essentially treated like one of a large number of dogs and cats that shared a small flat in the isolated city of Chita.

Like the other pets, she lapped at her food from a bowl on the floor and had never learned how to use cutlery.

Welfare officers, who were led to the flat by concerned neighbours, have placed Natasha in an orphanage. Although malnourished and small for her age, she appeared to be relatively healthy considering her ordeal, a police spokesman was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

He said the police were looking for the girl's parents, who are believed to be divorced.

Welfare organisations say that child abuse in Russia is worsening, particularly in the Far East where traditional problems such as alcoholism and unemployment are magnified.

Last week a woman was sentenced to three-years probation by a court in Chita after her baby died of alcohol poisoning. Yelena Sinitsyna admitted to drinking a pint of pure ethanol before breast feeding her four-month-old son.

The consumption of ethanol and alcoholic byproducts such as boot polish, collectively known as "samogon" in Russia, remains common in many parts of the country. Alcohol dependence is believed to be the main cause of low male life expectancy in Russia, which, at just 58, is among the lowest in the world outside Africa.

Activists say they are concerned that domestic abuse could become an even more serious problem as a growing number of Russians lose their jobs.

In the midst of Russia's worst economic crisis in a decade, unemployment has soared above 10 per cent, according to figures released this week which show that over 11 million people are now out of work.