Mother whose toddler was eaten by ants sentenced to 30 years imprisonment

A mother whose neglected daughter died in pain after she had been eaten alive by ants has sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. Luna Estefania, was 18 months old when she was found starving and critically sick, southern Mexican city of Chihuahua in 2014.

Baby Luna Estefania was immediately rushed to hospital but died two months later.

Her mother, Mariana Lizeth Salas Hernandez, 20, was arrested over the death after neighbors told police that the baby was often left on her own.

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.  Baby Luna Estefania 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.

It was not until the teenage mother, Lizbeth Jeronima Fuentes Munguia, returned home after midnight that she discovered the child bloodied and lifeless body. The baby was first pronounced the baby dead at the scene. After they now realized she was still alive and was taken to the hospital.

Munguia and her mother, who was babysitting the child, were arrested on suspicion of neglect.