Holiday tragedy as boy, 6, drowns in pool of Barcelona hotel ‘with no lifeguards on duty’

A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy has drowned in a hotel pool near Barcelona while on holiday with his family. The Belgian boy had travelled from Brussels with his mum to spend time holidaying on the Catalan Coast in Spain. Picturesque village of Calella de Palafrugell. Credit: Getty Credit: Getty But the holiday ended in tragedy when the youngster got into trouble in the water. His lifeless body was found by other bathers floating in the water. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! Emergency services were called to the hotel at the tourist resort of Calella at 5.55pm on Sunday. At least four local police patrols and medics arrived at the scene but the boy could not be saved. Eyewitnesses said there was no lifeguard on duty at the swimming pool, which was 5m deep at points. “The woman had come with her son from Belgium to spend ten days in Catalonia and is now being treated by the displaced psychologists because she has had an anxiety attack,” eyewitnesses told Spanish newspaper ABC. His devastated mum is now being treated by teams of psychologists who were sent to the scene. The tragic death of the Belgian child has brought the number of people who have died by drowning in swimming pools in Catalonia to seven since June. Most read in The Sun About 20 people have been injured in incidents of this type during the same period, most of them minors. The figures reflect an increase in fatal accidents compared to last year. Last summer, between June 15 and September 15, there were four deaths due to drowning in Catalan swimming pools. This figure has already been surpassed this year in just the first weeks of summer. A 76-year-old French man also drowned on Sunday at a beach in Castelló d’Empúries, Girona, after he fainted, local media reported. 1 comment1