Domini and Dioni were left with extra diapers when their mom abandoned them.
The hunt is on for a malevolent mom who deserted her two daughters, ages 3 and 5, on a Brooklyn sidewalk Sunday, leaving them each extra diapers and a heartbreaking lesson in hard knocks.
“Mommy just left us on the sidewalk and drove away,” the older girl told a Daily News photographer just seconds after a good Samaritan found her and her sister stranded on a bustling corner in Canarsie.
The girls were bundled up in hooded down coats, wearing UGG boots and holding fresh disposable diapers when they were found just before 3 p.m. in front of the Bay View Houses on Shore Parkway, cops said.
“We don’t know their identities yet,” a police source said. “They gave us their first names and said their mom dropped them off.”
The older girl told cops her name is Domini and that her little sister, who said very little to police, is Dioni, a source said.
“We live in a blue house with flowers in front,” Domini told The News as cops took custody of her and her sister.
She told cops she believed they lived on 53rd St., but could not recall what neighborhood or borough they were from, according to the source.
The sisters bore no obvious signs of abuse, but were taken to Brookdale University Hospital for precautionary observation and are now in Administration for Children’s Services custody.
Cops fanned out in the area, going door-to-door hoping to identify the forsaken sisters and track down their mother. Detectives were also scouring surveillance video from the Bay View Houses and nearby buildings.
The older girl told cops their mother’s name is Dalisha and she was driving a white car, but she did not know the make nor model of the vehicle.
Cops received a 911 call after an elderly couple found the children standing at the busy intersection of Shore Parkway and E. 102nd St. with cars zooming by, sources said.
Domini (left) and Dioni with Officer Ed Centeno. (Todd Maisel/News)
“They were wandering up and down the sidewalk for a while, just playing by themselves,” said Michelle Davis, 43, of Brooklyn, who was visiting a friend at the Bay View Houses when the girls were found.
“It’s horrible. How could you leave your own children out there?” Davis said. “They’re babies and you just leave them out there like that?”
Domini was dressed in a brown down jacket and blue jeans and had pink and white beads in her hair. Dioni was wearing a pink down jacket and matching pants.
The girls were not crying, but appeared confused as to why their mother would desert them on the streets.
The state’s Abandoned Infant Protection Act allows parents of newborns up to 30 days old to anonymously, and without fear of prosecution, drop their infants off at a hospital, police stationhouse or firehouse.
The children, with Officer Bily Morales and Centeno. The identities of the kids are not yet known. (Todd Maisel/News)
Until they know all the circumstances of why the children were abandoned, cops would not speculate on what charges, if any, the mother could be brought up on.
“I don’t know how anyone could do that to little kids like that,” said Lizzette Santiago, 38, a mother of three who lives at the Bay View Houses.
Santiago said she learned of the abandoned sisters from cops who took them door-to-door in the area. Like others in the housing project, Santiago did not recognize the girls.
“I have three children of my own. I felt really bad to see young children like that left on the street at a really young age,” Santiago said. “It’s really messed up.”
As word of the sisters’ ordeal spread through the neighborhood, locals expressed shock and anger at their mother.
“If they find the parents, I hope they don’t give them back,” said Frances Ruiz, 27. “I hope those girls go to a wonderful home where people take care of them, and I hope Mommy, whoever she is, gets prosecuted.”
Anyone with information on the girls is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.
