A six-month-old baby died when his mother, on her way to work at a hospital, left him in an overheated car in a hospital parking lot in the town of Charleroi.

The mother, who works at Saint-Joseph de Gilles Hospital in the city, left the baby in the car in the car park instead of in the hospital's nursery, they say the media. When the father came to pick up the baby from daycare, he was told that it hadn't been there all day, after which he called his wife, who ran to the parking lot.

The baby, whose gender has not been revealed, and which the media reports was only six months old, was only noticed by people around 17:30 p.m. Police and emergency crews arrived, but unfortunately could only determine that the baby, who had been locked in the car in the sun since morning, had died.

The authorities opened an official investigation into the tragic incident.