A senior emergency official on Spain’s Lanzarote island says a two-year-old boy was thrown overboard and killed during a migrant voyage because his crying angered people controlling the crossing, as authorities confront separate allegations of violence aboard boats traveling to the Canary Islands.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
A two-year-old boy was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean during a migrant crossing to Spain’s Canary Islands because his crying annoyed people aboard the boat, according to the head of emergency services on Lanzarote.
Enrique Espinosa, who manages the Lanzarote Security and Emergency Consortium, disclosed the child’s death during an appearance on the “A Buena Hora” program on Crónicas Radio while discussing violence reported aboard migrant boats reaching the Spanish island.
“There are even more terrible things than that,” Espinosa said, according to The Sun. “On a boat, they threw a two-year-old child who was crying with his mother into the water. They are terrible things. When they start telling you things, you see that it borders on a lack of humanity. An end must be put to all this trafficking by mafias.”
Espinosa said the child was traveling beside his mother when he was thrown into the sea because his crying had become an annoyance.
Spanish National Police have not announced an arrest connected to the boy’s death, and publicly available reports have not identified the child, his mother or the people allegedly responsible.
Espinosa raised the case while being questioned about another migrant voyage that ended at Lanzarote this month and resulted in a separate investigation into an alleged sexual assault.
That vessel was rescued northeast of Lanzarote on Sept. 16 after spending several days at sea.
Spanish maritime rescuers ultimately brought 65 survivors to safety and recovered the bodies of three people. Survivors later reported that another 10 people were missing, while organizations assisting migrants said family accounts suggested the number of missing could be higher.
Many of those rescued arrived in poor physical condition. Seventeen people required hospitalization, according to Spanish emergency services, with some suffering from hypothermia after passengers fell into the water as rescue vessels approached.
After reaching Arrecife, one woman told emergency personnel that several men had sexually assaulted her during the voyage, apparently while the boat was in international waters.
A witness who traveled aboard the same vessel later told investigators he had seen the alleged attack.
“Given her serious state of health, the necessary resources were activated to provide her with initial assistance, and she subsequently received specialized care as a victim at police premises,” a police spokesman said.
Spain’s National Police arrested three men, ages 21, 25 and 30, as suspected participants in the alleged group sexual assault.
The case was handled by the Family and Women’s Assistance Unit rather than immigration authorities.
Investigators also began examining whether additional violence occurred aboard the boat after several survivors arrived with injuries and bite marks that drew the attention of emergency personnel.
The three suspects were initially ordered into provisional detention. A court in Arrecife subsequently ordered their release after prosecutors raised questions over whether Spanish courts have jurisdiction because the alleged assault occurred about 12 miles outside Spanish territorial waters and involved non-Spanish nationals. The allegations remain under investigation.
Espinosa’s account of the two-year-old’s death concerned a separate crossing.
The emergency official described conditions aboard some migrant vessels as heavily controlled and unequal, saying passengers can be divided according to their position or status during voyages arranged by smuggling networks.
He said accounts emerging from survivors reveal acts that emergency workers encounter only after boats reach the islands.
The latest cases come as Lanzarote experiences another surge in migrant arrivals.
More than 450 migrants were rescued off Lanzarote over several days, according to officials cited in the report, while more than a dozen people were believed to have died during crossings.
The Canary Islands route has repeatedly produced mass-casualty incidents because migrants attempting to reach Spanish territory from West and Northwest Africa travel hundreds of miles through Atlantic waters, often aboard overcrowded and poorly equipped vessels.
Espinosa said the stories reaching emergency personnel demonstrate the danger is not limited to storms, dehydration or failing boats.
“On a boat, they threw a two-year-old child who was crying with his mother into the water,” he said. “They are terrible things.”
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