Five-year-old child beaten
within inches of her life
~ Surgeon concerned about increased violence ~
PHILIPSBURG--The grandmother of a five-year-old girl is distraught and wants justice for what she says was the brutal abuse of her granddaughter by her stepfather last week Thursday that landed the child in St. Maarten Medical Center and later in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Guadeloupe.
What irks grandmother Salomon even more is that her granddaughter’s doctor, Dr. Luc Mercelina, for whom Salomon has high regard, said many more cases like this went unchecked simply because people did not bring them to light.
On request and authorisation of the parents, Dr. Mercelina reluctantly disclosed that the child had had severe abdominal pain and had been admitted to the hospital on Friday in an unstable condition.
He said, “As the surgeon on call, I was immediately there and after examination, we concluded that the child was beaten nearly to death by an adult. … She suffered two ruptures of the liver and injuries to her pancreas. She also had injuries on her left arm and indicated that she had been severely ill-treated.
“We immediately treated the child and put her in ICU, but seeing the seriousness of the injuries, we had no choice but to evacuate the child by air ambulance to the University Hospital in Guadeloupe.”
Because the incident occurred in French St. Martin, where five-year-old K.C. lives with her stepfather R.A. and her mother, Prosecutor Paul Mooij alerted the Gendarmes about the matter. They were quick to act and not only detained R.A., but also visited the child at St. Maarten Medical Center.
While her granddaughter is now in Guadeloupe fighting for her life with her mother by her side, Grandma Salomon is hoping that by bringing this matter to the attention of the public, other perpetrators will be stopped and punished for such cruel acts.
She explained that K.C. would have died had it not been for the insistence of Dr. Mercelina that she be flown to Guadeloupe for further treatment, as her liver had been ruptured in two places and she was also suffering from pancreatic dysfunction.
Much to her grandmother’s joy, K.C. finally ate her first bite of soft food on Sunday. However, she is not out of the woods yet and is still being closely monitored in the ICU in Guadeloupe.
Mercelina said there were more severe cases and warned that the nature of the ill-treatment was becoming more intense. He mentioned the June 20 chopping of a young boy on Welgelegen Road and another case in which a child stabbed a man in the heart with a knife on June 29 within inches of his life, and said this must serve as a wake-up call to the community to make immediate changes or risk loss of many lives.
