A man and woman have been charged with neglect after a seven-year-old girl starved to death in Birmingham.

Neighbours claim they saw the girl, named as Khyra Ishaq, with other children grabbing bread that had been thrown out for birds.

The girl was rescued with five other youngsters from a house in Leyton Road in Handsworth on Sunday, but later died in hospital.

Junaid Abuhamza, 29, and Angela Gordon, 33, appeared at Birmingham Magistrates' Court yesterday and were remanded in custody until 28 May.

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They are believed to have been Khyra's mother and stepfather.

West Midlands Police have so far refused to confirm starvation as the cause of the girl's death.

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: "We are deeply saddened by the death of this child and our sympathies go to the child's family and friends at this difficult time.

"This death is now the subject of a police inquiry and Birmingham City Council are fully supporting their investigation."

Why would they do this... then again it isn't confirmed...

Seriously, how can you do that to your child as your mother?!
Letting your child starve to death.. I hope that mother/father burn in hell

Just awful. After the Austrian "father" with his prisoners and the mother with her babies in the fridge, we have this. Should be sent to prison immediately.

How did the girl die after being in the hospital? I don't know much about starvation, did she die of just general sickness, or what?

What do you expect? It's Birmingham.

poor kid! how sad!!! ;-; the mother should burn in hell!!!!

If fed too fast after a prolonged period of starvation the vital organs of a starving victim can actually burst.

She could have died because they treated her incorrectly.

More likely though, the extreme loss of fat and muscle brought about heart failure.

From my (very limited) understanding of starvation, after you have "eaten" away most of the energy reserves in your body (muscle, fat) your body starts to break down various organs until you go into organ failure; if the daughter was in the later stages of starvation and her kidneys/liver failed it might be fatal.

Honestly, this doesn't surprise me at all. I know someone who started working for the police (not as an officer) and she has been telling me more and more disturbing stories about how awful a lot of parents really are ... Its disturbing to hear stories of crack/meth addicted parents who neglect their children while high and only pay attention to them in order to pimp-out their young children to pedophiles to feed their addiction, and even if they get caught they're children are only temporarly taken away from them; realistically these children stand no chance of ever having any sort of "normal" life.

The more and more I learn about the negative sides of addiction, the more disturbed I am when I see television/movies/videogames which (in some way shape or form) glorify drug abuse ...

This happened so close to where I live it is scary, litteraly 5 minutes away. It's hard to think something like this can happen so close to you and you don't even realise it's going on.