A non-profit organization that helps refugees claims to have discovered the decaying body of a toddler Sunday after it washed ashore in Greece. Footage of a volunteer sitting beside what is claimed to be the child’s covered body has gone viral.
The remains were purportedly discovered on Kagia Beach, Skala Sikamineas – near Lesbos – by a nurse linked to the Swedish non-profit organization Lighthouse Relief.
READ MORE: 45 migrants, including 17 children, drown in migrant boat sinkings off Greece
LesvosNews.net reported the body was in “advance decay” when it was found.
“It is impossible to prepare for what I saw today,” the nurse, only identified as Merit, said in a Facebook post. “In one way, as a nurse, I am relieved I was the one who found her, so that another volunteer didn’t have to.”
Merit added that she had only found survivors up to that point.
“Bodies of baby girls should not wash up on beaches,” the organization added.
Video on Facebook of a Lighthouse volunteer sitting beside the child’s supposed remains had been viewed more than 260,000 times as of Monday afternoon.
Lighthouse’s discovery is similar to that of Alan Kurdi – the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was found on a Turkish beach in Sept. 2014. An image of Kurdi’s body went viral after it was published by a Turkish photographer and played into the federal election with the Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP all promising to take in more refugees.
Sunday’s discovery came two days after at least 45 people, including 17 children, drowned when a pair of smuggling boats sunk off different Greek islands. It’s unclear whether the two incidents are linked.
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