Italian police on Monday arrested three people in connection with a newborn baby of Ghanaian origin, Henry, who died a few hours after being circumcised at home. The three are outside the baby's family circle, police said. Henry, who was one month old, died in a Turin hospital on May 29, where he was brought by emergency services after suffering cardiac arrest following a home circumcision. The emergency call came from a building known as "Spazio Neruda" where hundreds of homeless or evicted families are squatting and where the boy's parents had brought him on the previous evening and spent the night. Mustafa Qaddurah, a pediatrician and councillor with the Islamic Cultural Centre of Rome, said Italy's national health system doesn't cover circumcisions performed for cultural, non-medical reasons. "That means you either go to a clinic, where it's expensive, or to these charlatans," Qaddurah said. He said an unauthorised circumcision costs about 30-50 euros.
"According to our estimates, 30-40% of Muslims (living in Italy) prefer to have it done in their country of origin, but another 30-50% go to unauthorised personnel, who work in unsuitable places, with the result of killing babies or causing serious deformities, that we then see in our offices," he said.
He said there were other similar deaths recently in Treviso and Puglia.
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