A father has admitted throwing the body of his six-year-old child into the sea after the child died during the dangerous journey to Cyprus, police said on Monday.
Police spokesman Christos Andreou told the Cyprus News Agency that the incident had happened in February during the passage of a boat carrying the irregular migrants from Syria.
“On February 29, the radars of the coastal and maritime police detected a boat 58 nautical miles off Larnaca with a total of 36 irregular immigrants on board. Officers intercepted the vessel, which was sailing unruly in bad weather conditions, and though enormous effort managed to collect the migrants and bring them to safety to land.”
He added that during their registration process, a family had been identified with four children according to their paperwork, however only three children had disembarked.
Asked where the fourth child was, the father told the police that two days before the boat was found his six-year-old had died from starvation and rough conditions and he had thrown his child’s body into the sea.
According to reports, the group had set off nine days earlier from Syria. During the course of the journey, food and fuel ran out and the boat got caught up in a big storm.
Survivors reported that three other people on board had abandoned the vessel with improvised floats in an attempt to swim to shore and get help.
However, investigations launched by the search and rescue team, have yet to yield any information about these three people.
Two other migrants are currently hospitalised at Nicosia general hospital, one in a critical condition with hypernatremia after drinking sea water because they ran out of water, Andreou said.
The migrants had been transferred to the Pournara reception centre in Kokkinotrimithia.
A 22-year-old boat pilot was arrested for the crime of assisting the passage of irregular migrants to territory of the Republic.
Among other things the boat’s operator is facing charges of homicide and causing death through negligence.
The young man was brought before the Larnaca district court on Friday, where he was remanded for eight days.
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