A 10-year-old girl from El Salvador, who suffered from congenital heart defects, died in US custody last year, Mark Weber, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said, speaking about a previously unreported case, which brought the number of migrant children known to have died in US custody in the past eight months to six
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd May, 2019) A 10-year-old girl from El Salvador, who suffered from congenital heart defects, died in US custody last year, Mark Weber, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said, speaking about a previously unreported case, which brought the number of migrant children known to have died in US custody in the past eight months to six.
"Following a surgical procedure, complications left the child in a comatose state. She was transported to a nursing facility in Phoenix, Arizona for palliative care in May after release from a San Antonio hospital. On September 26, she was transferred to an Omaha, Neb., nursing facility to be closer to her family. On September 29, the child was transported to Children's Hospital of Omaha where she passed due to fever and respiratory distress," Weber said in a statement to the CBS broadcasting company.
The spokesperson noted that the girl, whose name is not disclosed, had a history of congenital heart defects and was in a medically "fragile state," when she entered the care of an Office of Refugee Resettlement facility in Texas on March 4, 2018.
US Senators Bob Menendez, Cory Booker and 22 other Democratic lawmakers earlier urged Department of Homeland Security's Acting Inspector General John Kelly to probe the conditions of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facilities on the United States' southwest border after CPB reported on Monday that a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy was found unresponsive while in their custody.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has been making efforts to stop illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border, even threatening to close the southern frontier.
