Lifeless child found on southern Catalonia beach could be Mediterranean migrant

Municipal worker discovers body of 2- to 4-year-old in Roda de Berà

Police officers at the Roda de Berà beach where the child's body was discovered on July 11, 2023
Police officers at the Roda de Berà beach where the child's body was discovered on July 11, 2023 / Redacció
Catalan News

Catalan News | @catalannews | Barcelona

July 11, 2023 01:49 PM

July 11, 2023 07:32 PM

The body that was found on a Roda de Berà beach in southern Catalonia could possibly belong to a migrant child who perished in the Mediterranean.

According to the town's mayor, Pere Virgili, this is one of the main hypotheses authorities are working with after a municipal cleaner made the grim discovery on Tuesday morning at around 8 am.

That the child was wearing "pants and a long-sleeved jacket," the mayor said, does not suggest it was dressed for the beach. 

"It could be the body of a child from one of the migrant shipwrecks that are turning the Mediterranean Sea into the 'Death Sea," he said. 

Local police, Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra officers, and Spanish Guardia Civil police, who are in charge of the investigation, were called to the scene.

Pere Virgili, Roda de Berà mayor on the hypothesis the police are working on

The body is thought to belong to a 2- to 4-year-old child and is decpatitated and in an advanced stage of decomposition.

Virgili described how he arrived at the beach as the police were getting there and said the child "looked like a doll" at first. 

Upon further inspection, he explained, they "unfortunately realized it was possibly a human body." Emergency medical workers soon confirmed the findings were human remains. 

The body was removed around 11 am, with a Vendrell court opening an inquiry into the matter. 

The beach has since been cleared and is already open to the public again. 

FOLLOW CATALAN NEWS ON WHATSAPP!

Get the day's biggest stories right to your phone