[dropcap size=big]U[/dropcap]nited States authorities have admitted that a 10-year-old girl died in U.S. border patrol custody after being detained by officers in September of last year. That brings the total of dead children to six while being held in a U.S. border detention center, where families have been separated and detained after seeking refugee status in the United States.
The death had not been previously reported, and no name or photograph of the girl has been released.
Little else is known about the child other than that she had fled El Salvador, and that was brought to a Office of Refugee Resettlement center in March of last year in a “medically fragile state,” according to statements made by a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The latest revelation of a child’s death in the hands of U.S. border custody came only days after Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a 16 year old boy from Guatemala, died at a U.S. Border Patrol station in Texas. Hernandez Vasquez reportedly told officials that he felt ill on the day of his death. A nurse diagnosed him with Influenza A, and officials drove him to a facility 22 miles away to a segregated cell, where he died later in the day.
“Yet another child has died in US government custody,” Amnesty International said in response. “This death, which comes days after the administration released a proposal to make it even more difficult for people to seek safety in this country, leads us to wonder how many deaths it will take for the administration to ensure the safety and security of children.”