Afghan child refugee dies after eating poisonous mushrooms days after fleeing Taliban – World News
The fiver-year-old – whose dad was said to have worked with the British Army in Afghanistan- has been declared brain dead after eating death cap mushrooms near a refugee centre in Poland, local doctors say
Image: Sgt Samuel Ruiz/US Marine Corps via DVIDS/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
A five-year-old boy who was evacuated from Afghanistan to Poland has died after eating poisonous mushrooms, reports say.
The youngster – whose dad was said to have worked for the British Army – has been declared brain dead, according to local doctors.
He and his brother, six, were taken ill after eating death cap mushrooms in a forest outside their refugee centre near Warsaw.
The two boys arrived at the facility on August 23 and were taken ill along with their sister, 17, days later.
The girl has since been discharged but the older brother is still in a critical condition.
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The youngest child’s death was announced on Thursday, according to Barrons.
“Brain death was confirmed today… We have declared the child dead,” Jaroslaw Kierkus, a doctor at the Children’s Memorial Health Institute in Warsaw, told reporters.
Jakub Dudziak, a spokesman for the Office for Foreigners, denied a press report that the children had eaten the mushrooms because they were not being fed sufficiently at the centre.
Speaking earlier this week, he said evacuees are given “three meals a day, consisting of varied ingredients with appropriate calorific value, including dairy products, meat, vegetables, fruit and drinks”.
Prosecutors have opened a probe into the incident.
According to Polish website oko.press, the children’s dad worked for the British Army in Afghanistan for several years.
The family was then airlifted from Kabul to Uzbekistan last month at the request of the UK, as the Taliban took over, before being flown to Poland.
But tragedy has now struck – with the older boy said to be fighting for his life.
Doctors are quoted as saying: “In the case of a 6-year-old, the transplanted liver is working properly, but in the last 24 hours we have observed increasing symptoms of severe damage to the central nervous system.
“The prognosis for survival in the boy is unfavorable.”
Amanita phalloides – commonly known as death cap mushrooms – is one of the poisonous of all known mushrooms.
Widely distribute across Europe, they resemble a number of edible mushrooms – meaning they can easily be confused and eaten.
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