A 22-year-old man from South Korea was arrested after he reportedly neglected his infant son who starved to death while his father played online video games for days at a nearby internet cafe. The man identified as Chung was arrested by the police after the badly decomposed body of the baby was found in a garbage bag by the authorities after a CCTV footage of Chung casually fixing his hair while carrying the said garbage bag inside an elevator was revealed and aired in different TV stations across the country, bringing shock and anger to citizens across the country.
It was gathered that the little boy’s mother left him in the care of his father in the city, she had gotten a job as a factory worker. Inquisitor reports:
The news came into light just as the debate of whether online games are as addictive as smoking is at its peak in the Asian nation. Shortly before the incident, the ruling conservative party was in the news for pushing the classification of online gaming as being potentially addictive as other vices, such as cigarette smoking and alcohol.
However, Chung, reportedly heavily addicted to video games, failed to provide proper nourishment to their infant child, opting instead to spend his days inside internet shops while leaving his infant son to suffer in the house without food. Allegedly, the father only went home every two or three days to sparingly feed his son.
According to official police reports, the father discovered that his son has succumbed to starvation on March 7 and left the body to rot inside his apartment for another month until he decided to dispose the corpse of his infant son in a garden one mile away.
He then initially reported his baby missing, but soon confessed to disposing the body of his own infant son.
Online video games have been a problem in South Korea for years. The country boasts itself as one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. According to Statista, South Korea’s internet connection is the fastest in the world, with speeds averaging at 13.3 mbps.
However, their advancement in the field may have indirectly caused many cases of gaming-related parental neglect that has been reported to happen in the country for the past years.
In 2010, a Korean couple was arrested for starving their real life child to death while raising a virtual child online.
