Ebyan Farah, Somali Refugee, Arrested & Charged with Neglect, in Deaths of Two of her 5 Children

Somalian refugee, Ebyan Farah, has been arrested and charged with two counts of neglect in the deaths of two of her children, a three year-old boy and a five-year old girl. According to the Indianapolis Star, police were considering filing additional charges against her. IMPD Detective Scott Scheid told the Indy Star, the deceased children, as well as their mother and surviving siblings, appeared to be extremely thin and possibly suffering from dehydration.

The children were found "in a state of rigor mortis in a front living room" of an apartment in the Manchester Village complex. They might have been dead for about two hours by the time police responded to a 911 call at 8:40 p.m., Scheid said, and there were no visible wounds on their bodies.

The children were found "in a state of rigor mortis in a front living room" of an apartment in the Manchester Village complex. They might have been dead for about two hours by the time police responded to a 911 call at 8:40 p.m., Scheid said, and there were no visible wounds on their bodies. Source

Burhan Hassan, the father of the children, is a cabdriver but has been in Africa about a month visiting family, according to the Indy Star. The surviving children, ages seven, five and one, have been taken into protective custody by the Department of Child Services. This is weird. The father had enough money to go back to Africa, but his family is dehydrated and possibly hungry. Still, this is a sad turn of events because the parents were among half-dozen families from Somalia living in the apartment complex.

UPDATE#1 (09/22/10): According to the Indianapolis Star, police said Ebyan Farah is accused of locking her five children in the closet for 10 hours that led to the deaths of  Zakariya Farah, 3, and his sister, 5-year-old Zuhur Farah died Sunday. She made her first appearance in court this morning.