A dad has told of his heartbreak following the death of his kind, loving and talented daughter - aged just 16.

Sasha Ghosh, from Smeeth, near Ashford, had been competing internationally in gymnastics before being diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer two years ago.

Her dad Arin believes she may have even represented Great Britain one day, such was her flair and dedication.

But one day Sasha started experiencing back pain and an upset stomach. Following tests, in 2022 the family received the devastating news that she had a desmoplastic small round cell tumour.

This is a rare kind of soft tissue sarcoma that normally grows in the abdomen but can occur anywhere in the body, of which only 12 cases are diagnosed each year.

Mr Ghosh, 58, told KentOnline: “She was a very kind and loving child. She is very much missed.”

He said Sasha started doing rhythmic gymnastics in Canterbury when she was six and “really had a flair for it”.

“Very quickly, she was advancing up the grades of the sport and started competing in the UK at club levels,” Mr Ghosh said.

Along with Sasha’s mother Olga and her younger brother and sister, the family moved abroad to Qatar in 2019, but the young athlete carried on with the sport in the Middle East.

She then started competing internationally - in Europe, back in the UK and in Asia.

Mr Ghosh said: “She was very good at it. She really dedicated her life to it because it was such an intense regime - training every day.

“She could have potentially represented Great Britain. Who knows?”

The family moved back to Kent for Sasha’s treatment after her diagnosis - but were left frustrated by the lack of specialised options available beyond chemotherapy.

They even contacted clinicians in the US who suggested a different type of chemo, but by the time Sasha had that treatment, she was very weak and it hit her badly.

Her dad explained: “She was very strong.

“She knew what she wanted. She had a mind of her own and the one thing she always said was that she absolutely hated going to hospital with a passion.

“And there came a time when she said: ‘That's it. I just don't want to go to the hospital anymore. No more treatment for me. I just want to stop now.’

“That came from her, ​​she recognised what it meant.

“For us as parents, it was the worst possible news, but that’s what she wanted.”

Before her death on April 28, Sasha and her family had been campaigning for more research into the cancer.

They are now continuing to do so in her memory.

Mr Ghosh said: “Sasha's disease is a very rare cancer.

“There's only a handful of cases every year and I think that's the reason why there isn’t very much research into it.

“It just gets pushed by the way, because things like leukaemia and lung cancers are much more prevalent.

“But we still have a few children dying every year, but that's too many. One child is too many.

“It shouldn’t be up to charities to raise funds for this kind of work, the government needs to step in.”

Despite desmoplastic small round cell tumours being so rare, tragically Sasha is not the first teenager in Kent whose life has been cut short by the cancer.

In 2017, Kelly Turner from Dover died aged 17, two years after doctors confirmed she had the disease.

Her parents have campaigned to raise awareness of the cancer - and now Mr Ghosh is doing his part too.

He has released a song titled I Hear Your Voice dedicated to his daughter, which he says is helping him cope with his own grief too.

The civil servant wrote it just a week after she died and performed it at her funeral, held at St Mary's the Virgin Church in Smeeth on May 31.

Charity Sarcoma UK had got in touch with the family before their tragic loss to ask if they would help in a national campaign, which the youngster was keen to be a part of.

Mr Ghosh said: “Just two days before she died, Sasha said to me, ‘I wish somebody had spoken out about this disease 10 or 20 years ago – if they had, maybe things would have been different for me today.’

“In the days following her death, all these thoughts were sort of mulling around in my head.

“I just penned a verse as a poem, really, around that theme of Sasha having a voice and it turned into a song.

“I wanted to carry on in her name to try to promote and raise awareness about the cancers she had suffered from because she didn’t get the chance to do that.

“It’s a way of coping with my own grief too, by doing something positive.”

Desmoplastic small round cell tumours are often associated with children and young adults up to the age of 30.

Sasha’s only symptoms to start with were back pain around September 2021 and then an upset stomach three months later. Her cancer diagnosis was in March 2022.

Mr Ghosh pleaded: “It doesn't matter how insignificant or superficial you might think they are - don’t ignore it.”

Sarcoma UK chief executive Richard Davidson said: "Desmoplastic small round cell tumour is one of the rarest and most aggressive forms of sarcoma, affecting just a handful of people each year, often young individuals full of life and potential.

“Arin's poignant song and Sasha's tragic story serve as a powerful reminder that we cannot let these rare cancers go unnoticed or underfunded.

“While Sarcoma UK is proud to have supported some research into desmoplastic small round cell tumours, it is a drop in the ocean of what's truly needed.

“We urgently call upon the next government to join us in prioritising and investing in research that could unlock new treatments and hope for families facing the unimaginable pain of losing a loved one to sarcoma.

“It’s so important that people with these very rare sarcomas are not left behind.”