A 14-month-old Vietnamese girl in the northern city of Hai Phong returned home with a body covered in bruises after her first day of preschool this week, her family told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Chi, 29, said her daughter went to preschool for the first time on Wednesday at the Hoa Sen private kindergarten in An Duong District, Hai Phong.

When Chi went to pick up her daughter on the afternoon of the same day, the girl’s supervising teachers  apologized to her, saying they had failed to prevent other classmates from biting the child.

“I thought there would only be a few bruises,” Chi said.

“I was shocked to find that my daughter’s face was covered in bruises, while her chest and other parts of the body were also bruised.”

Chi said she immediately took her daughter to a local police station to report the injuries, demanding that the cause of her daughter’s bruises be investigated.

She said her daughter has since stayed home.

A 14-month-old girl is covered in bruises after her first day of preschool in Hai Phong City, Vietnam. Photo: Nguyen Tan / Tuoi Tre

The kindergarten’s principal has visited the family and taken responsibility for the incident, while insisting that the bruises were caused by other classmates, Chi said.

However, the mother said she didn’t notice any “biting” between the kids in CCTV footage taken from cameras installed inside her daughter’s classroom.

The only time she couldn’t see her daughter was when the girl was brought by a teacher into another room, outside of the camera’s field of vision.

Duong Vu Manh Hung, head of An Duong District education and training division, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Wednesday he was aware of the incident.

An investigation is underway by police officers in An Duong District, he said.

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