Another migrant child has been brought to the Makarios Hospital ICU from the Pournara reception centre, state health services organisation (Okypy) spokesman Pambos Charilaou said on Friday.
The child, who has chronic health issues, was brought urgently on Thursday night, and is being care for with another two children taken to the ICU on Wednesday night after their boat was brought ashore.
The boat had been adrift in the sea for six days, resulting in a total of five children being brought to intensive care, and two adults heading to hospital with injuries.
One of the children, a 5-year-old girl, died from a heart attack on Thursday, while her sibling was in the hospital with her.
Since then, the mother of the children has been allowed to visit and went on Thursday.
Charilaou said that all the parents have been allowed to visit their children.
Following the death of the little girl, another child was brought to Makarios Hospital with serious health issues.
Charilaou said that currently, two children are being cared for at Famagusta General, another three at Makarios hospital, and two adults are being cared for at Larnaca General with injuries.
Speaking about the rescue of the migrant boat, Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Commander Andreas Charalambides explained that there were a total of 61 people aboard the boat when it was spotted, 11 of whom were taken to hospital.
Of those 11, four were transported by emergency helicopter, while the remaining seven were received by ambulances upon their arrival at the Ayia Napa marina.
There were 15 children on the boat, five of whom were unaccompanied. Asked about the ages of the children, he said those taken by helicopter to hospital were “around three or four years old”.
Speaking about the boat’s journey towards Cyprus, he explained that it had left Lebanon at midnight on January 18 before spending almost a week at sea. He said it was then spotted off the coast of Cyprus by a commercial vessel which was en route to Egypt.
The 61 were seen cramped in a wooden boat at 4:30am on Wednesday, around 30 nautical miles east of Cyprus.
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Mail
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Mail
Source