A BABY missing in the English Channel after his entire family drowned trying to reach the UK was found stranded in Norway.
Police used DNA to confirm that the body of a child discovered earlier this year is that of the tragic 15-month-old Artin Iran-Nejad.
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A major search to find Artin was launched after the migrant boat his family was on capsized and sank off Dunkirk on October 27.
His father Rasoul and his mother Shiva, both 35, drowned along with their daughter Anita, 9, and their son Armin, 6.
They were trapped in the cabin when the crowded boat was overturned by 16-foot waves.
Fifteen other migrants were taken to the hospital, but little Artin and two adults unrelated to the family remained missing after a search was called off.
It has now emerged that his body was discovered nearly 600 miles away in southwestern Norway.
Police were initially unable to identify a young boy who was found dead on the shore near Karmoy on New Year’s Day.
“There was no reported missing a baby in Norway and no family had contacted the police,” said head of investigations Camilla Tjelle Waage. told the BBC.
“The blue jumpsuit was not a Norwegian brand either [and] that indicated that the baby was not from Norway. “
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Forensic scientists at the University of Oslo were able to obtain a DNA profile that matched the missing child.
His remains will be transferred back to Iran for burial, police said today.
Family members had spoken of their anguish over not knowing what had happened to Artin for more than seven months.
The Kurdish family had left their home in Sardasht, western Iran, on August 7.
They traveled to Turkey and Italy before arriving at a makeshift camp in the Puythouck forests in Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk.
Artin’s parents reportedly spent days agonizing over whether to go through with the dangerous sea voyage to England.
Shiva’s tragic final texts to his relatives reveal how they knew they might not make it, but “had no other choice.”
One text read: “If we want to go with a truck, we may need more money than we don’t have.”
Shiva also wrote: “I have a thousand pains in my heart and now that I have left Iran I would like to forget my past.”
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Friends from the camp said they pleaded with the family not to get on board the hikers’ fishing boat.
Farhad Shekari, 28, who intended to cross with the family, said The times: “I told people not to get on the boat. I said it was too dangerous.”
But according to Farhad, evil human smugglers forced desperate migrants onto the boat and packed it until it was full.
He continued: “[He] which forces people to get on the boat. He said, well, well, well … Smugglers are only interested in one thing and that is money ”.
Another man who had been living next to the family’s two-person tent in the woods recounted how the parents dealt with the decision.
Ahmed, 30, said: “The last night before he left, the father was afraid for the lives of the children.
“Everyone was desperate and crying.
“Rasoul said: ‘I want to be at peace, I don’t want to fear for my life anymore.’
“They just wanted their children to go to school in England and have a better life.”
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The family reportedly paid the smugglers over £ 21,000 after selling all their possessions and borrowing from family members.
Rasoul’s brother Khalil said he begged him not to cross the Channel, Telegraph reported.
Khalil said, “We beg you not to try to cross by boat. He insisted on going.
“He told me there were giant waves. He said, ‘If I had known it was so dangerous, I would never have tried.
Khalil said his brother had initially tried traveling to Germany or Switzerland, but later changed his mind for unknown reasons.
French prosecutors launched a manslaughter investigation against the gang that operated the ship.
It occurs when a record number of migrants have made the sea crossing from France in the first months of this year.
More than 1,000 crossed last week alone, including 89 picked up from four ships yesterday, and more arrived this morning.
Bring the number so far this year to 4,521. The total is expected to exceed the 8,400 who crossed in 2020.
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