A hospital in Mexico has allegedly lost the body of a young woman who died during a C-section, meaning that her grief-stricken family cannot bury her.

Keren Vallejo Castro was 31 years old when she died during a C-section to deliver her second baby at the Regional Specialty Hospital No 30, which is part of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), in the city of Mexicali in the north-western Mexican state of Baja California on Sunday, 30th January.

And the hospital has now allegedly lost her body.

There are reportedly numerous irregularities in the case, and the family has already filed a formal complaint with the authorities.

Michael Cortez Martinez, the victim’s widower, said that Keren went to the hospital on Sunday morning. That afternoon, she reportedly underwent a cesarean section, also known as a C-section, to deliver her baby.

The husband returned to the hospital a few hours later and was allegedly informed by an unnamed anaesthesiologist that his wife had had a reaction in the operating room and that they had withdrawn the anaesthesia.

The woman was declared dead, and doctors at the hospital performed an autopsy on the body, reportedly determining that a haemorrhage was among the causes of death. The woman’s family also said that the doctor who oversaw her pregnancy also has no explanation as to why she died.

The family filed a complaint with the local prosecutor’s office and the IMSS was ordered to send the body to the Forensic Medical Service for a secondary analysis.

But the body that was delivered was reportedly not that of the victim, and it is currently unclear where the victim’s body is located.

Not only was the body the wrong one, but the person in charge at the Forensic Medical Service said that the body they had received bore signs that it had already been autopsied, which is reportedly not a procedure that the IMSS is trained to carry out.

This irregularity was also reportedly noted by the State Attorney General’s Office.

Michael said: “At the prosecutor’s office, they told us that the IMSS does not do autopsies because they are not trained to do so. So how is it that I signed a paper that said that an autopsy was going to be done to determine the cause of death?”

According to the latest information, the family was still waiting for the body to be found at the second autopsy to be carried out, so that they can determine what caused Keren’s death.

It was unclear at the time of writing if the body had been found yet and if the authorities had filed any charges.