INQUEST RULES ON DEATH OF GALWAY ASYLUM SEEKER

Date Published: 18-Oct-2007

An inquest has found that a South African woman found dead in a Salthill hostel earlier this year, died from self-induced malnutrition.The final hearing of 27 year-old Brenda Kwesikazi Mohammed took place at Galway's Coroner's Court today.Coroner Dr Ciaran MacLoughlin heard evidence from a Department of Justice official who read out a statement defending the Reception and Integration Agency's response to the woman, who had been receiving treatment for depression. She had repeatedly requested a move to self-catering accommodation before she died of anorexia on 6 January last. The Department of Justice is claiming they made an offer by phone to her husband to move the family to self-catering accommodation in Mosney. But her husband, who was present in court today, insists no such offer was made to her and that none of his late wife's letters to the Agency were ever acknowledged.