A mother whose neglected daughter died in agonizing pain after she was eaten alive by ants has been jailed for 30 years.
Luna Estefania, was just 18 months old when she was found starving and severely ill at home in the southern Mexican city of Chihuahua.
She was taken to hospital but died two months later.
Her mother, Mariana Lizeth Salas Hernandez, 20, was arrested over the death after concerned neighbours told police that the toddler was often left on her own. She was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison by a federal judge.
Investigators told how Hernandez simply did not take care of her daughter, even neglecting to feed her for 15 days at the end of April and beginning of May in 2014.
The toddler had also been left paralysed as a result of a fall she suffered while her mother was not looking after her. The girl also sustained a head injury when she was just two months old.
When she was found by police and social services, Luna Estefania was described as being severely malnourished and covered in ants who had eaten parts of her body.
She was immediately taken to hospital but later died. Medics said the toddler must have endured agonising pain in her final months.
It comes just days after a four-month-old baby was chewed to death by rats after her 18-year-old mother left her at home to go to a party in Acolman, Mexico.
Daily Mail