Police: Child dies after hit by car while walking to school bus

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FOX 5 News has learned a little girl has passed away after being struck by a car while her mother carried her to the school bus stop Friday morning.

The accident happened around 7 a.m. on Central Drive at Ray’s Road in DeKalb County.

DeKalb County Police told FOX 5 News a mother was holding her 8-year-old daughter in her arms when they were hit by a red vehicle while crossing the street to get on a school bus. The little girl, identified by family members as Tluang Tha Men, was taken to the hospital with a critical head injury and later died.

Men's cousin said the close-knit family is from Burma and is having a hard time understanding what happened.

"Everybody just feeling sad, they don't know what to do. They come back from work and school and are in this house," cousin Thawng Cin told FOX 5's Aungelique Proctor.

The mother suffered a minor hip injury and is being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital, police said.

The driver of the red vehicle, Ejigayheu Tsegaye, remained on scene after the accident, but will be charged by police. Investigators believe the bus's stop arm was out and the bus was completely stopped before the mother and daughter crossed the street.

The bus was headed to the International Community School, which is where the 8-year-old victim was in the 3rd grade. Police said other students were on the bus when the mother and daughter were hit.