According to the Police, a dead child, aged 6, was thrown overboard at sea.
The child died during the journey to Cyprus while on a boat with his family and other irregular migrants.
As stated by the Police Spokesperson, Christos Andreou, “on February 29th, the radars of the Port and Marine Police located a boat, 58 nautical miles off the coast of Larnaca, on which a total of 36 irregular migrants were aboard. Units of the Port and Marine Police proceeded to the area where they located the boat, which was adrift, in adverse weather conditions, and with great efforts, the migrants were successfully taken on board and safely transported to land.”
He added that “during the inspection of the migrants’ documents, the papers of one family showed four children, however, only three were found on the boat.
When asked about the whereabouts of the fourth child, the father told the Police that they set off with the others by boat on February 20th from Syria, but during the journey, their food and fuel ran out, causing the boat to drift aimlessly in bad weather conditions with heavy seas.”
As Andreou stated, “the father claimed that two days before the boat was located, one of his children, aged 6, had died, possibly from starvation and hardship, leading him to throw the child into the sea.”
Furthermore, as reported by other migrants, three other individuals aboard the boat abandoned ship with makeshift rafts and swam aiming to reach the shore and seek help.
However, despite the search efforts initiated by the Search and Rescue Coordination Center from the outset, the three individuals have not yet been located.
Two other individuals, continued the Police Spokesperson, “are hospitalized at Nicosia General Hospital, one in critical condition due to hypernatremia, as they drank seawater because they ran out of drinking water.”
After registering their details, the migrants were transferred to the Pournara First Reception Center in Kokkinotrimithia.
Regarding the case, a 22-year-old individual was arrested as the captain of the boat and for assisting migrants to illegally enter the territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
During the investigations and interviews conducted by the Police, testimonies were taken from all those aboard the boat, leading to the 22-year-old being rearrested as a suspect, among other charges, for manslaughter and negligent homicide.
The young man was brought before the Larnaca District Court on Friday, March 1st, which issued a detention order against him for eight days.
