Search for Parents of 3 Abandoned Newborn Siblings Now Focused on Going Door-to-Door at 400 Homes, Say Police

Police are looking for the parents of three newborn babies who were abandoned in London.

According to the BBC, baby Elsa was found by a dog walker in a shopping bag in Newham on Jan. 18.

DNA tests then found that Elsa was the sibling of two other newborns (a boy and a girl) who were found abandoned in 2017 and 2019.

The BBC reports that the babies, who were given names that have since changed by emergency staff, are yet to be identified despite the appeals made by authorities.

The search operation has included officers knocking on doors and requesting residents to give DNA samples to see if there are any relations to the babies.

People are also being contacted via the national DNA database to see if they share similar DNA to the mother of the children, according to the publication.

Sharing a link to the BBC article, the Metropolitan Police wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), “We continue our efforts to locate Baby Elsa’s parents.  Read more about our officers’ commitment to finding the parents and the specialist investigators and techniques involved.“

PEOPLE reached out to the Metropolitan police for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

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According to Sky News and the London Evening Standard, officers have focused on 400 homes in East London near the location of two of the babies ahead of their disappearances.

The outlet added that hundreds of hours of CCTV footage have been recovered, as well as there being a £20,000 reward, which was offered earlier this year.

Per the BBC, Harry was found in Palistow Park, Balaam Street in 2017, just over a mile away from where Elsa was discovered. He was reportedly wrapped in a towel and left in a bush. 

Meanwhile, Roman was located by a dog walker on a bench in a park for children, in Roman Road at around 10:15 p.m. local time in 2019. She was reportedly wrapped in a towel inside a shopping bag.

According to the BBC, officials believe the babies’ mother left them, adding that she could be restricted from coming forward.

“Now my strong feeling is that [the mother is] not able to come forward,” Detective Inspector Jamie Humm said, adding that she may have mental health problems.

“The hypothesis that, as senior investigating officer, I believe is most likely, is that the mother of these children is vulnerable, is in danger, and is in a position where they feel that they are unable to come forward for whatever reason,” he said, per Sky News.

“We are treating mum as a victim in this case, and we are on standby to support her with everything she needs,” he added.

According to the outlet, Humm suggested that a fourth baby could be found soon.

“We can’t be blind to the fact that there may be a fourth [baby], and certainly the passage of time and the cycles of nine months it would take to potentially get pregnant and birth a child, mean that we cannot discount that,” he said. “That means, again, I’m appealing to the public, because if there is another abandoned child, that child may not be as fortunate as Elsa and her siblings.”