The dead body of a decapitated child is found on a beach in Tarragona

The body of a baby was found this morning (Tuesday) washed up on the Costa Dorada beach in Roda de Berà, in the province of Tarragona. The Local Police received the alert at around 8:00am and informed the Guardia Civil and the Mossos d'Esquadra who went straight to the beach.

In a statement published on social media, the Roda de Berà City Council has confirmed the discovery and has announced that the area is fenced off.

The head of the investigating court of El Vendrell (Tarragona), has already carried out the removal of the body and, after opening the necessary proceedings, is waiting to receive the corresponding forensic and police reports, according to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC).

At the moment, the sex, age, and nationality of the deceased, whose corpse was decapitated and in a high state of decomposition, which caused it to be difficult to identify, is unknown, but they estimate it is between 2 and 4 years old.

The mayor of Roda de Berà, Pere Virgili, said: “It is possible that the child could be a migrant shipwrecked in the Mediterranean because of the type of clothing they were wearing. It is not the typical clothing that a child would wear to the beach”.

He also explained that a member of the beach cleaning brigade found the body, which at first, they thought was a child’s doll.

"At first it looked like a doll, but it is a decapitated corpse, which had been in the sea for a long time. Here we can make hypotheses and assumptions, and it could be one more corpse of the 'mare mortum' that we have in front of our beaches”, stated the mayor.

The Guardia Civil are in control of the investigation, and have cordoned off the area so that it can be inspected more closely for clues as to the origin of the child and how they got there.