South Korean couple’s daughter starved to death while they raised a ‘virtual baby’

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A couple left their baby daughter to starve to death at home while playing an internet game that simulated child-rearing, Korean police say.
The man, 41, and his wife, 25, have been arrested, five months after they reported the death of their three-month-old baby. The couple, who met on the internet in 2008, had been on the run since their baby died.

The baby was found dead on September 24 and an autopsy showed her death was caused by a long period of malnutrition.

The couple had ”raised” an online girl character while neglecting their own prematurely born daughter, feeding her once a day.

The couple, residents of a Seoul suburb, allegedly neglected their prematurely born three-month-old daughter, feeding her just once a day in between 12-hour stretches at a neighborhood internet cafe, the official Yonhap news agency reported.

Police said the couple had become obsessed with raising a virtual girl character called “Anima” in “Prius Online”, a popular role-playing game in South Korea.

“The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,” said Chung Jin-won, a police officer.

“They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

Professor Kwak Dae-kyung of Seoul’s Dongguk University told the Yonhap news agency that the couple appeared to have lost track of reality.

“Online game addiction can blur the line between reality and the virtual world. It seems that taking care of their on-line game character erased any sense of guilt they may have had for neglecting their daughter.”

Dae-kyung urged the government to prepare measures so that families and neighbors can contact local authorities or hospitals if anyone shows symptoms of online addiction.
“This kind of situation is not a problem that an individual can solve,” he said. -CNN

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