A 6-month-old baby girl is now dead after her 9-year-old brother allegedly fed her with rat poison (blue rice) yesterday morning.

The Guyana Guardian understands that the 9-year-old child who was originally living with his grandmother in Georgetown, was taken to La Grange on the West Bank of Demerara to live with his mother earlier this year, just about the same time that his mother had delivered a baby.

It is alleged that the mother had caused the lad to return to her home in order to help her to look after the baby, since the woman had to work.

As a result, the child would usually babysit, feed, change and take care of the baby whenever his mother was not around, or whenever she is occupied with other chores.

Neighbours confirmed that as a result of the responsibility bestowed upon the 9-year-old, he could not have attended school on most days.

For them, taking care of the baby became too overbearing for the little child, which was evident in the fact that he was always crying out to return to his grandmother in the city.

It is suspected that the situation may have become so overbearing, that the 9-year-old decided to get rid of the baby so that he would not have to be saddled with the burden of taking care of the child anymore.

The lad has since told investigators that yesterday (Wednesday) morning he went to a nearby shop in the La Grange community, and told the shopkeeper that his mother had sent him to buy rat poison to get rid of some rodents that were in the home.

The shopkeeper, who believed the child’s story, sold him the ‘blue rice’, which is a fast-acting poison that is used to killed rats by digestion.

The child then went home, placed the poisonous substance in the baby’s porridge, and fed it to the child, unknown to his mother.

The visibly distraught mother told this publication that sometime later while she was attempting to breastfeed the baby, she noticed that the child was vomiting and frothing almost uncontrollably.

It was then that she inquired from her 9-year-old son who allegedly confessed to poisoning the baby.

The baby was subsequently rushed to the West Demerara Regional Hospital where she died, despite the efforts of the doctors to save her.

Because of the nature of the child’s death, the police were called in, and an investigation has been launched into the incident.

It remains unclear as to whether the 9-year-old child will be kept in custody.

Nonetheless, he has become the youngest person in Guyana to be arrested for murder.