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
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.
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.