Egyptian prosecutors renewed on Thursday the detention of a mother of a teenage girl who died during an illegal female genital mutilation (FGM) operation at a private hospital last month, state agency MENA said. The woman, along with other defendants, faces charges of "indecent assault of the girl, conducting an illegal operation and forgery." Security forces are attempting to apprehend the female physician who carried out the operation; she has been on the run since an arrest order was issued for her, a security source said. An anaesthetist who took part in the operation has been released on bail of EGP10,000 (approximately $1,125). Seventeen-year-old Mayar Mohamed Mousa died in the private hospital of El-Canal in Suez governorate on 29 May while undergoing the illegal procedure. Female genital mutilation was officially banned in Egypt in 2008, but the phenomenon is still widespread among both Muslims and the country's minority Christians, particularly in rural areas. A doctor was convicted of manslaughter in January 2015 after a girl died while he was performing an illegal circumcision on her. In the first trial of its kind, the girl's father was also convicted and given a three-month suspended sentence. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/222680.aspx
