Nineteen-year-old María Antonella Mirabelli, from Rosario del Tala, Entre Ríos Province, died on Saturday of anorexia nervosa after refusing medical treatment due to her religious beliefs, local media reported.
Antonella, whose parents have been divorced for six years, thought God would help her because he could "heal all evil", following her mother's and grandmother's beliefs.
One day after her death, the girl's mother, Verónica Rodríguez Rocca, posted a letter on Facebook where she thanked "Samuel Roskin for respecting people's individual rights, that others wanted to deny my daughter Antonella. She was allow to make her will, she remained true to her beliefs until the day she died".
Antonella's grandmother, Cielo Rocca, explained to Diario Uno from Entre Ríos why the girl refused to receive medical care. "Not everyone understands our faith, which is not in the wisdom of men", she claimed. "My granddaughter was very ambitious and beautiful. God released her once at 14 from schizophrenia. We knew He was also going to release her this time".
Her father, Cristian Mirabelli, had requested help from authorities on several occasions to get his daughter hospitalized. In September 2012, he filed a complaint regarding his daughter's living situation to the Defensoría de Pobres y Menores (Ombudsman for Children and the Poor), since his daughter looked ill and was not receiving any medical treatment.
He is now reporting Antonella was abandoned by the women she lived with. On the day she died, Antonella weighed 68 pounds (31 kilos), told Radio del Plata.
The young girl's father is asking for help to get "immediate psychiatric and medical treatment" for his six other daughters, as he fears they may share Antonella's fate.
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