Eleven-year-old Luana Costa is pictured posing in a photograph showing her belly before she died following a premature birth. Francinildo Moraes, 43, sexually abused and groomed the young girl for three years, and also convinced her to pose in photographs as though they were in a normal adult relationship

Luana Costa, an 11-year-old girl who was sexually abused by a much older man called Francinildo Moraes has died.

The sexual abuse victim died days after prematurely giving birth to a child fathered by a 43-year-old man, according to Daily Mail UK.

Francinildo Moraes groomed and sexually abused Luana Costa from the age of nine and continued to have sex with her during her pregnancy in Brazil.

Police said Moraes convinced the youngster to pose in photographs with him as though the pair were in a normal adult relationship.

Luana was in her fifth month of pregnancy when she had to be induced. She died four days after the birth, on 27 October.

The crimes occurred in the rural municipality of Uruara, in the northern Brazilian state of Para.

Moraes and Costa are pictured together in one of the photographs. Police said he convinced her into taking pictures with him as though they were in a normal adult relationship and uploaded them on to social media

Luana’s family members only became aware of the sexual abuse when they noticed changes in her body and they took her to see a doctor, who revealed she was five months pregnant.

The girl then told the family about the abuse she had suffered over three years.

According to her aunt, the man threatened the girl not to tell anyone, and he carried out his crimes far from the family’s village.

The suspect had uploaded dozens of photos of the pair to his social media pages, showing an apparently affectionate bond between the two, despite the illegality of their ‘relationship’.

Police are looking for the suspect, who remains at large and may have fled.

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Source: Daily Mail UK