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Baby dies after monkey snatches it from home

A four-day-old girl has died after a wild monkey snatched the baby from her family's living room in Malaysia.
/ Source: msnbc.com staff and news service reports

A four-day-old girl has died after a wild monkey snatched the baby from her family's living room in Malaysia, the Straits Times reported Thursday.

When the child's 26-year-old mother left briefly to use the bathroom, the macaque monkey entered into the house, took the baby and fled to the roof, according to the newspaper. The girl's badly bitten body was later found outside.

She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, the paper said.

"We frantically searched all over the house and saw her body covered in blood lying outside the house," the baby's grandfather, A. Valaythan, told the newspaper.

The incident occurred in Negri Sembilan state.

Wildlife official Ishak Muhamad told The Associated Press that the monkey may have been attracted by a female pet monkey the family kept in a cage.

Malaysian authorities have battled a booming macaque population in cities. However, plans to catch them and export them for food and scientific research were scrapped in 2008 after officials discovered most of them were riddled with disease.