Egyptian prosecutors have detained a retired doctor who allegedly performed a female genital mutilation procedure on an Egyptian girl who subsequently died due to complications.

Prosecutor-General Hamada El-Sawy also ordered the father, the mother and the uncle of the 12-year-old girl be detained for four days pending investigations.

Nada Hassan Abdel-Maqsoud died on Thursday in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut.

The prosecution’s investigations revealed the girl’s father, mother, uncle and aunt accompanied her to an operation to receive the procedure.

Abdel-Maqsoud’s father reported the incident to the prosecution, who ordered an autopsy.

"The general prosecution affirms it will face with absolute firmness those accused of committing such a heinous crime," reads a statement from the prosecution. 

Female genital mutilation is criminalised in Egypt, and a 2016 legal amendment mandates sentences of between five and seven years in prison for those involved in a procedure, if it results in death or disability of the victim.

The first conviction for performing FGM in Egypt was in January 2015, seven years after the practice was first criminalised in 2008.

In the 2015 case, a father and a doctor were convicted of causing the death of a 13-year-old girl who died during an FGM operation.

According to the 2014 Egyptian Demographic Health Survey, 92.3 percent of ever-married women aged 15-49 have undergone female genital mutilation.

Four-fifths of such operations are carried out by medical professionals, according to the survey.

According to the health ministry in 2018, the rate of FGM among teenage girls aged from 15 to 17 years old fell from 74 percent in 2008 to 61 percent in 2014.