A three-year-old Vietnamese girl hospitalized in Hanoi with nine nail-like objects in her skull in a suspected child abuse scandal has passed away after nearly two months of treatment.

The little girl, D.N.A., of Hanoi’s Thach That District, died at 7:00 pm on Saturday at the city-based Saint Paul General Hospital, doctors said.

“The girl could not survive despite the great efforts from doctors to save her,” Dr. Tran Van Trung, head of the hospital’s pediatric emergency resuscitation department, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Saturday evening.

“Her family is carrying out procedures to bring her home.”

The girl was first taken by her mother to Thach That General Hospital on January 17 in a coma and convulsions, with her right arm already in a plaster cast.

After an X-ray scan of her head showed nine objects that looked like nails in her skull, the hospital reported the unusual case to local police and transferred the girl to the Saint Paul General Hospital due to her severe conditions.

After an investigation, Hanoi police arrested and initiated legal proceedings against Nguyen Trung Huyen, the 30-year-old partner of A.’s 27-year-old mother, on charges of murder on January 20.

Huyen was determined to severely brutalize A. by breaking her arm, forcing her to swallow screws and drink pesticides, and hammering nails in her head.

On the morning of January 17, when A.’s mother went to work, Huyen slapped A. many times after he called her but she did not answer, Huyen confessed to investigators.

The man then hammered many nails in the little girl’s head.

Police officers have continued to clarify the role of A.’s mother, Nguyen Thi L., in relation to the case.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!