The newborn’s cause of death has been made public after it was allegedly abandoned by a six-year-old who was left to wander a French maternity department.

With a catastrophic brain injury, five-day-old Baby Zayneb-Cassandra was discovered unconscious on the floor next to her crib at the Jeanne-de-Flandre Children’s Hospital in Lille, France, on Friday, July 11. She passed away on Tuesday as a result of her injuries.

The baby died from trauma “consistent with a fall to the floor,” according to confirmation from Lille’s prosecutor’s office on Friday.

Although her official cause of death has not been revealed, it is thought that a youngster who was discovered standing on a chair next to her took the small infant from her cot and dropped her to the ground.

“A six-year-old child, a member of another family, was indeed seen near the crib and the child on the floor,” prosecutors also confirmed.

Witnesses have stated that the six-year-old kid was let to wander the wards unsupervised, and police have opened a criminal investigation into the horror that occurred at the Rainbow ward last week.

Delphine, a young woman who had just given birth herself, heard what she described as a ‘loud bang’ and hurried into the room to find the boy and the baby.

Born six weeks early by caesarean section to parents Mohamed-Hamza and Sephora, baby Zayneb spent the weekend on life support and underwent two rounds of resuscitation before passing away this week.

The boy in issue had been unruly for days and was not being watched over because his mother was also recuperating from childbirth, Delphine subsequently told Le Parisien.

“He was running around everywhere and had already touched a baby in a stroller,” Delphine said.

Zayneb’s distraught father’s cousin Karima asserted that hospital personnel had been “warned” of the boy’s “abnormal behaviour.”

Additionally, she claimed that the boy had become obsessed with Zayneb, referring to her as “my doll,” and had probably caressed her unattended the day before she fell.

“The day before, Zayneb had already been found without a diaper or electrodes, wet and suffering from hypothermia,” Karima claimed.

Even though the youngster was described as a “disruptive presence” at the hospital, there are now concerns about how he managed to approach Zayneb’s crib in the neonatal unit alone.

Karima described how, after his father dropped him off at the hospital every morning, the youngster was rioting in the hallways for days.

“The father would drop him off in the ward from 7am to 8pm,” she said.

Zayneb’s grandmother, Fatma, told the Voix du Nord newspaper: “The boy would arrive at 7am and spend all day running up and down the hallways.”

“All the mothers were complaining, and a nurse even warned the child’s mother that there was a problem. He was entering the other rooms.”

“He also entered Zayneb’s room for the first time. He said she looked like a doll, and my husband, who was there, took him out.”

“It seems he tried to grab her by her nappy, and she fell on her head,” Fatma concluded.

“My family is destroyed… My daughter is devastated. Coming home without her baby is inconceivable.”

Mohamed-Hamza, Zayneb’s anguished father, told Le Parisien that he doesn’t hold the youngster responsible for his daughter’s suspected life-ending injuries accountable but instead criticized the hospital for their negligence.

“Every six-year-old is a little disruptive. I don’t blame the mother; she had just given birth… But the child should have been supervised,” the 23-year-old declared.

After learning that her child had passed away, Fatma continued, she had to pressure medical personnel to set up psychiatric care for her distraught daughter-in-law.

Together with local prosecutors, the Lille Judicial Police Service’s youth unit launched a criminal inquiry into the tragedy this week.

The hospital also announced the opening of “an internal administrative investigation.”

A spokesperson said: “This human tragedy has deeply affected the staff and teams of Lille University Children’s Hospital, as well as the other families present.”

A separate statement provided to French press acknowledged “a particularly serious and upsetting exceptional event, unrelated to care.”

“The thoughts of the University Hospital professionals are first and foremost with the young victim, her family, and her loved ones,” it read.

The hospital also added that “measures to strictly limit visits to the neonatal units of the Lille University Hospital have been taken as a precautionary measure.”

Sephora and Mohamed-Hamza rejected the statement but have not yet lodged a formal complaint.

“It won’t bring my daughter back… But we’re waiting for answers. There was a breach, and I’m going to fight to identify those responsible.”

“Justice will do its job,” he told Le Parisien.