The Honduran State Ministry announced on Monday that it had launched an ex officio investigation into death and possible rape in a group home of a 12-month-old girl who was in state custody.

A multidisciplinary team composed of agents of the Special Prosecutor for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Life and the Technical Criminal Investigation Agency is conducting “ex officio investigations” to determine the cause of death, the public ministry said in a statement.

The girl died last Friday allegedly from malnutrition at the Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, where pediatricians found that the minor was allegedly raped, extreme, which is being investigated by the Public Ministry.

One of the girl’s relatives told reporters on Saturday that the minor was in the custody of the Directorate for Children, Adolescents and Families (Dinaf) presumably due to severe malnutrition.

Dinaf, according to the Public Ministry, “engaged in the institutionalization of small in a center established for the care of minors with obvious symptoms of malnutrition, so that, with timely care, they may recover from suspected acute malnutrition.”

Multidisciplinary Team confiscated the medical card of the girl in the state hospitalHe took statements from his parents, medical staff and Dinaf, among others, he added.

Prosecutors and investigators of the Technical Criminal Investigation Agency (Atik) visited the house where the minor was at the weekend and are awaiting the results of a legitimate medical autopsy to determine the cause of death.

The State Department indicated that the autopsy result would be of “major importance” in confirming whether the girl had been sexually abused, and recalled that “any precise details on this matter must be known exclusively to the judiciary for the purpose of investigating and bringing to justice those who correspond.

Dinaf director Lisette Coelho said that, according to preliminary data, the girl died of “generalized sepsis”.

“Girl, despite the care, developed severe pneumoniadue to which she was taken to the emergency room and again admitted to the Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in a septic condition on July 15, ”Coelho said at a press conference.

The death of a minor “is subject to generalized sepsis (as) a consequence of pneumonia and malnutrition, which depresses the general immune status of the girl, which is why she is intubated in intensive care,” said the head of Dinaf.

He added that the results of the autopsy determine whether a minor has been raped, although he ruled out that this was the cause of death.

Between 2021 and 2022 There are about 3,112 complaints of sexual abuse of minors in Honduras. from 8 to 15 years, and, according to official figures, most of them go unpunished.

(EFE)