Police take 7-year-old Hamza home: hours later, he is dead
Just hours before his death, 7-year-old Hamza was wandering alone through the streets of Merchtem, Belgium. Police found him and took him home. During the night, the child died and three relatives were arrested.
On Wednesday morning, a passerby noticed the boy alone in the town center, visibly lost and holding a tablet. Unable to give his address, Hamza was taken into police care, and officers eventually found the apartment where he had been living for about two months with his mother and uncle.
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The family had moved in with the 24-year-old uncle after the mother’s home in Denderleeuw had been declared unfit for habitation, La DH reports, based on information from HLN.
A few hours after Hamza returned, the situation took a turn. Shortly after 10 p.m., a neighbor heard his mother screaming. The child was found motionless. His uncle and a friend of his mother, aged 22, attempted to revive him.
Emergency services called more than an hour later
According to the reported details, emergency services were called only more than an hour after resuscitation attempts began. Despite the intervention of firefighters and the SMUR emergency medical team, the child’s death was confirmed shortly before 1 a.m.
The three people present were subsequently placed under arrest warrants. The investigating judge charged the uncle with murder. The mother, aged 27, and her friend were also placed under arrest warrants for failure to assist a minor.
A neighbor also claims to have regularly seen Hamza spending long periods on the ledge of a window in the apartment.
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The investigation must now establish precisely what happened between the time police took Hamza home and his death a few hours later. The uncle’s indictment does not prejudge his definitive guilt.
