Updated - Adds arraignment - An Ethiopian mother has been able to see and hug an eight-month-old baby who she abandoned outside the law courts on November 15

The baby is in  good health and being cared for by the Ursuline Sisters.

Mgr Philip Calleja helped an Ethiopian woman see a baby boy she had abandoned.

The baby boy was abandoned when his father, Ibrahim Mohammed Abdallah, was condemned to a six-month jail term for trying to leave Malta with his wife and baby using passports which did not belong to them.

The woman pleaded with the police to stay with her husband in jail. When that failed to get her anywhere, the woman left her son in his pushchair at the door of the Law Courts in Valletta and disappeared.

However last Friday she made contact with Mgr Philip Calleja, director of the Church's Emigrants' Commission.

She explained that she had acted in a moment of panic. Her family, she told him, had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep and they had therefore tried to leave Malta, only to get caught.

She eventually managed to move in with a Somali woman and is hoping to have the baby returned to her.

The police questioned the woman and later arraigned her, accusing her of abandoning the child. The woman pleaded guilty and was conditionally discharged.