BOLOGNA (Italy), March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A five-month-old boy has died after parents performed a circumcision at their home in Italy, officials say.
The baby was sent to a Bologna hospital in cardiac arrest on Friday night, but died shortly afterwards.
Authorities in the northern Reggio Emilia province have opened an investigation against the parents, who are reported to be of Ghanaian origin.
In a similar case, a two-year-old boy died after a failed circumcision at a migrant centre in Rome in December.
Some 5,000 circumcisions are performed in Italy each year but more than a third are carried out illegally, according to health charity Amsi.
Circumcision is not carried out at public health institutions in the Roman Catholic country.
Many of the country’s immigrants come from Muslim countries where circumcision is commonplace.
Circumcision is legal throughout Europe, although the practice is becoming more controversial.
A court in Germany passed a local ban in 2012 after the circumcision of a four-year-old Muslim boy led to complications, with the judge saying it “permanently and irreparably changed” the body.
However, the German government later that year clarified that the procedure is legal provided it is performed by trained practitioners.
The following year, the Council of Europe recommended countries take steps to ensure good medical and sanitary practices when performing a circumcision.
And in the UK in 2016, a court ruled that a Muslim father could not have his sons circumcised after their mother disagreed. — NNN-AGENCIES
