Two cousins aged 8 and 13 have been arrested on suspicion of attempted rape and murder after a two-year-old girl was found dead in a gutter.
The incident took place in the village of Bani Hamil, which is located near the city of Al-Balina in the Sohag governorate in southern Egypt.
The lifeless body of the young girl was found a few days after her disappearance in a gutter and the last people she was seen alive with were her eight-year-old and 13-year-old male cousins, according to Emirati media outlet Al Arabiya.
The young girl, who has not been named, was found dead after her father, also unnamed but who is said to be a driver, filed a police report with the Al Balina Police Department after his daughter went missing.
The two cousins reportedly admitted during police questioning to having killed the young girl after they “failed to sexually assault her”, still according to the Emirati newspaper.
They also reportedly admitted that they were afraid of being caught so they carried her tiny body and threw it in a gutter.
There have been no further updates on the incident and the investigation is ongoing.
It is currently unclear what fate awaits the two young suspects.
It is currently prohibited under Egyptian law to use the death penalty against juvenile offenders, but according to Amnesty International, since 2013, there have been instances of minors being sentenced to death by Egypt’s lower courts.
