No one knows how long this child had to suffer in silence. In Austria, a seven-year-old girl has been hospitalized in critical condition after nearly starving. Although she was severely neglected, no one around her ever seemed to notice anything.
Journalist at HLN
Source: Tiroler Tageszeitung, Bild
Only when death was near did her parents take action. According to witnesses, they took their daughter to a doctor in a stroller, simply because the girl was too weak to walk on her own. The mother (40) and father (35) then fled, but have since been arrested.
The accusations made by the Public Prosecution Service make no bones about it: the couple allegedly left their daughter almost completely to her fate in their home in Tyrol. To protect the child, the authorities are keeping the exact place of residence secret for the time being.
What is certain is that the girl was extremely thin when she was admitted and suffered from a serious skin condition. Whether this skin disease is the direct result of long-term malnutrition is still being investigated. “The girl was in acute danger to her life,” a spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service in Innsbruck confirmed to the ‘Tiroler Tageszeitung’. The child is currently recovering in hospital.
Village in shock: “Nobody knew about this”
It was the treating doctors who immediately called the police after the parents brought the girl in at the eleventh hour. After the hospital visit, the couple fled. It was only three days later, when an arrest warrant had already been issued, that they turned themselves in separately to the police. The Public Prosecution Service suspects the couple of gross neglect.
The fact that alarm bells have never gone off in all that time now raises many questions. Because the girl was reportedly homeschooled, she was not visible to authorities or teachers. No one in the close-knit village community was suspicious either. “The whole village is in shock,” says the local mayor. “There are countless rumors going around, but no one knows what is really behind this.”
The misunderstanding is even greater because the father grew up in the village and was a well-known figure. He was active in club life and even played in the local brass band.
