Spanish authorities have confirmed that the lifeless body of a baby found on a beach near the Mediterranean city of Tarragona is that of a young child who perished in a migrant boat shipwreck earlier this year. The incident, which occurred in April, claimed the lives of all 15 people aboard the ill-fated vessel.
The eight-month-old infant had been travelling with her parents on a dinghy that set sail from Algeria on March 21, destined for Spain’s Balearic islands. Tragically, the boat sank off the coast of the Balearics on April 6, resulting in the loss of all lives on board.
Following the discovery of the baby’s body on July 11 in Roda de Bera, a picturesque seaside town on Spain’s renowned Golden Coast, located approximately 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Mallorca, the police conducted a thorough analysis. Through genetic testing, they were able to establish a match between the baby’s genetic sample and that of a woman whose body was recovered after the shipwreck in April.
This brings the total number of bodies found from the tragic incident to eight, including the baby and her mother. Illegal migrants frequently attempt to reach Spain’s eastern Mediterranean coast from Algeria, but the journey remains perilous. According to the Spanish migrant charity Walking Borders, this particular route has become the second-most deadly in the Mediterranean for migrants over the past five years, resulting in an estimated 464 deaths from 43 shipwrecks in 2022 alone.
