A Syrian family was forced to throw the body of their child into the sea after he died of hunger during a migration trip to Cyprus (Reuters)
Cypriot media reported that a Syrian family was forced to throw the body of their 6-year-old child into the sea after he died of starvation during the 10-day migration journey.
The Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Cyprus announced that the search for the body of a 6-year-old child who was thrown into the sea from a boat carrying irregular migrants to Cyprus had been canceled last Monday, according to what the American newspaper “Washington Post” reported.
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The police said that the child died while his parents were on a trip from the shores of Syria to Cyprus, where his father threw his body into the sea.
Police spokesman Christos Andrew said, "On February 29, coastal and maritime police radars detected a boat about 108 kilometers off the city of Larnaca, south of Cyprus, with 36 irregular migrants on board."
He added, "The officers intercepted the ship that was sailing in bad weather conditions, and after a tremendous effort they were able to collect the migrants and return them to safety. During the process of registering the migrants' data, a family with 4 children was identified according to their papers, but only 3 children got off from it."
He continued, "When the father was asked about the whereabouts of the fourth child, he told the police that two days before the boat was found, his 6-year-old son died due to hunger and harsh conditions, and he threw his child's body into the sea."
According to Andrew, "At the same time, the search for three migrants on the same boat was cancelled, and the survivors reported that they left the stricken boat after it was spotted by the Coastal and Marine Police, and they tried to swim with improvised buoys to the shore to seek help."
The Cyprus News Agency reported that, according to Joint Rescue Coordination Center sources, “the Joint Rescue Coordination Center was informed that the three men had abandoned the boat, and that the Center had lost all hope of finding any individuals.”
Andreou said two other migrants are currently being treated at Nicosia General Hospital, one of whom is in critical condition due to his blood sodium rising after drinking seawater due to running out of potable water.
According to reports, the group of irregular migrants set off from Syria, and during the journey they ran out of food and fuel, and the boat capsized after it was exposed to a strong storm.
The migrants were taken to the Purnara reception center in Kokinotrimithya, while the boat operator faces charges of murder and causing death through negligence.
This was not the first incident of its kind. In 2022, a video clip showed footage of a migration boat in the Mediterranean Sea, where a Syrian father threw his son’s body into the sea after he died of hunger and thirst due to running out of food and water.
Footage of a migration boat in the Mediterranean Sea shows a Syrian father throwing his son's body into the sea after he died of thirst as they also ran out of food and fuel.
pic.twitter.com/Dr72DtutjY
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 18, 2022
Many Syrian asylum seekers die during migration journeys, and death is often due to drowning either in the Mediterranean Sea or in the Evros River on the land border between Turkey and Greece, or due to extreme cold in the forests.
The tragedies of children on migration boats
The International Organization for Migration reported that nearly 100 people have died or disappeared in the central and eastern Mediterranean since the beginning of 2024.
In July 2023, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced that about 289 children had died or disappeared since the beginning of 2023 during trips crossing the migration route from North Africa to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, that is, an average of 11 children every week.
Since 2018, more than 1,500 children have been killed or gone missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to estimates by the United Nations.
In November 2022, the International Organization for Migration announced that more than 50,000 people had died worldwide during migration journeys since the IOM's Missing Migrants Project began documenting deaths in 2014.
According to the report, more than half of the individual deaths documented occurred on roads leading to and within Europe, with Mediterranean routes claiming the lives of more than 25,000 people.
European routes also account for the largest number and percentage of missing and presumed dead persons, as more than 16,000 people were recorded missing at sea and their remains were never found.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that those seeking to reach Europe, on “desperate journeys” across the Mediterranean, died at an alarming rate of six people per day in 2018.
Source: Al Jazeera + websites