Girl stabbed and killed, brother believed guilty (update 2)

A nine-year-old girl died early on Tuesday evening after police said they believe she was stabbed by her 13-year-old brother in Larnaca.

Police were alerted to the incident at around 5pm and upon their arrival at the family home in the Ayios Ioannis area of Larnaca found the girl there with knife wounds. She was then taken by ambulance to Larnaca general where doctors pronounced her dead.

The girl was allegedly stabbed by her 13-year-old brother while they were both at home. Her injuries were reportedly in her back.

She was found in a pool of blood by her father.

The boy reportedly faces psychological problems and was expelled from school last year due to delinquent behaviour.

He reportedly stabbed his sister during an argument.

According to the daily Politis, the 13-year-old was being questioned by the Larnaca CID but was not arrested as he is under 14, which is the age of criminal responsibility.

The two children were staying with their father after their parents’ separation. They have been living in the same Larnaca neighbourhood for the past three years. The family moved to Cyprus from Romania several years ago.

The father does not have stable employment and the family lives on welfare, the daily said.

Neighbours told the media that the nine-year-old, who was in fifth grade, was a very bright girl.

A neighbour told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that he was at home when he heard the father yelling and ran outside. “I saw the father carrying the girl outside,” he said, before he called the police and an ambulance.

“I touched the girl to check if she had a pulse, but she didn’t have one, and she started turning blue,” he told CNA.

While the father was trying to resuscitate the girl, he said, the boy sat outside in the yard.

The man said that the two siblings argued often.

State pathologists Sofoclis Sofocleous and Nicolas Charalambous examined the scene, which was cordoned off by police.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.