A VEGAN couple obsessed with "natural" food allegedly starved their two-year-old daughter to death then refused to let doctors treat her.
Svetlana Zhiteleva, 36, and her husband Denis Zhitelev, 35, fed little Mana only girl raw food, while forbidding meat, fish, eggs, and milk from her diet.
The Russian parents, from the Krasnoyarsk region, also treated their three children with alternative therapies and refused all medicines, say criminal investigators.
A post-mortem examination found two-year-old Mana was suffering from anaemia, a chronic eating disorder, coronavirus, and developmental delays.
The couple have been accused of child cruelty, neglecting their parental duties, and failing to help their daughter when her life was at risk due to their raw food and homeopathic beliefs.
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They now face losing custody of their two other children, ages seven and four - and up to three years behind bars following little Mana's death.
After their toddler's cremation, the parents scattered the ashes on a mountain and Svetlana posted: “Death is your mother.
“Be reborn through her. Sex, childbirth, and death are always portals to the beyond, the unknown.”
She said: “The story of this transition is wild, full of magic, and perhaps hard to believe when read.”
The mother is a spiritual dance and yoga trainer, and her husband makes and sells natural oils.
“The girl aged two fell ill with a cold, but the parents did not seek qualified medical help and treated the child themselves,” said the Russian Investigative Committee.
“Two days later the child died.
A procedure is now underway “to limit their parent's rights” after their "cruel treatment of a minor”.
Denis said: "We are adequate parents. We cared and loved [our daughter].”
He insisted: “Her temperature, pulse, and heartbeat was normal.
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“There was just weakness, that’s all, her breathing just stopped.
“We didn’t feed the children [animal food], because that’s how we eat ourselves.
“The children were conceived and born in such an environment.”
It comes after a heartless couple starved their son, 6, to death while they feasted on steak dinners.
Liam Roberts, from Jerseyville, Illinois, weighed 7kg and was found wearing a top made for a 12-month-old baby, when he died in November 2017, police said.
In 2020, two children were rescued from a house in Kazakhstan after being starved and tortured by their parents for "asking for food".
And in 2016, two children were left to starve for nine days while their mum visited her lover.
Vladislava Podchapko, 20, left her two tots alone in her flat in Kyiv, Ukraine, with no food.
