The child was on a boat with his parents that left Algeria in March and sank off Spain’s Balearic Islands on April 6.
The body of a baby washed up on a Spanish beach near the Mediterranean city of Tarragona last week is that of the daughter of migrants involved in a boat accident that killed 15 people in April, police said.
The boat carrying the boy and his parents along with 12 others left northern Algeria on March 21 and sank off Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean on April 6, Spain’s Guardia Civil police said on Tuesday.
Municipal sanitation workers found the baby’s decomposed body on July 11 on Roda de Bera beach in the northeast of Tarragona – about 200km (124 miles) northwest of the island of Mallorca.
The Criminalistics Service identified the girl by comparing her DNA with a database containing her mother’s DNA.
Spanish news outlet laSexta, citing the Guardia Civil, said the child’s body was the eighth to be recovered from the sunken boat.
Spain is the main gateway for migrants and refugees who are often fleeing violence or extreme poverty to Europe. Many arrive regularly on the southern coast of Spain from Algeria and Morocco.
According to Spanish migrant aid organization Walking Borders, the crossing to Spain’s east coast from Algeria has been the second deadliest for migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean over the past five years, with at least 464 people killed in 43 boat accidents in 2022 only.
Between January 1 and July 15, 14,021 refugees entered Spain directly by sea and land, a decrease of 6.5 percent over the same period last year, according to the latest figures from the interior ministry.