BARCELONA: A baby’s body that washed up on a Spanish beach last week is that of the eight-month-old girl from a shipwreck that killed all 15 migrants aboard, police said on Tuesday.

The boat carrying the infant and her 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 force said on a statement.

The baby’s body was found in an advanced state of decomposition on a beach in Roda de Bera in the northeastern province of Tarragona on July 11 by a municipal cleaning crew.

A DNA sample taken from the body was found to match that of a woman whose body was recovered shortly after the shipwreck who had already been identified, the police statement said. Including the baby and her mother, the authorities have found eight bodies of the migrants who drowned in the shipwreck.

Spain is main gateway for migrants seeking a better life in Europe and migrants regularly arrive on Spain’s southern coast from Algeria and Morocco.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2023