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A disabled girl whose lower lip was bitten off by her mother to stop her crying has died after her heart suddenly stopped.

In 2015, Katya Spesivtseva, aged six at the time, was assaulted by her mother Ludmila, then 33, in the town of Revda in west-central Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast region.

Katya, who suffered from cerebral palsy, started crying at night and woke her mother, who became enraged at being woken up.

Ludmila approached Katya's crib and attacked her daughter. She started beating the girl, telling her to "shut up" but the terrified youngster began crying even louder.

(Image: CEN/VK) (Image: CEN/VK)

The enraged mother then clenched her teeth onto Katya's lower lip in anger and tore it off.

Katya spent several days in intense pain without medicine before her mother called an ambulance.

The girl was rushed to hospital and doctors said that the mother had tried to bite Katya's nose as well during the ordeal but failed.

They also found a lot of bruises, fresh and old, on the victim's body.

Photos show Katya in hospital with her lower lip missing.

Katya spent a year receiving treatment in different hospitals and doctors found she was suffering from numerous neglected diseases she had contracted due to a lack of care.

She was then adopted by Anna Makarova-Bespalova from the Black Sea resort town of Anapa in south-western Russia's Krasnodar Krai region.

(Image: CEN/VK)

(Image: CEN/VK)

Katya's mother was sentenced to four years in prison for the assault and the court also deprived her of her parental rights.

According to local media, Katya spent the last year of her life with the Makarov-Bespalovs family, who surrounded her with care and love before she suddenly died from heart failure at age nine.

Anna Makarova-Bespalova, who became Katya's mother, said: "We were not ready for Katyusha [diminutive for Katya] to decide to leave us.

"And although she was not with us for too long, the whole family has a hard time because of the loss."

Katya's father left the family just after the child's birth and had never been in contact with her.