A three-year-old British boy has died after falling from the fourth floor of a hotel in Chloraka, near Paphos in Cyprus, while on a family holiday. His 37-year-old father has been arrested on suspicion of negligence, with Cypriot police continuing to investigate the exact circumstances of the fall.
The family had arrived in Cyprus only the day before the tragedy, having checked into their hotel on Saturday ahead of a summer holiday. According to local news outlet Sigma Live, the boy’s father had been playing with him while the pair waited for a lift when the toddler slipped from his arms and fell from an open corridor window on the hotel’s fourth floor. He landed on the hotel’s main veranda and was unresponsive when paramedics arrived at the scene.
Rushed to hospital but could not be saved
Cypriot authorities said the fall took place at around 6pm on Sunday, with police formally notified at 6.40pm, by which point the boy had already been taken to Paphos General Hospital by ambulance. Despite the efforts of medical staff, he could not be saved and was pronounced dead at the hospital. The boy’s parents also have a five-year-old daughter, who was with the family on the trip. Social welfare officials have since been deployed to support the child’s mother and sister following the tragedy.
Father arrested and due in court
The boy’s father was arrested at around 10.15pm on Sunday, just hours after the fall, as detectives began investigating the circumstances of his son’s death. He faces charges of causing death by a reckless, negligent or dangerous act, neglect of duty as the head of a family, and failing in his responsibility as a person with care of another. He appeared in court on Monday morning, where he is set to be remanded for eight days while enquiries continue.
Investigation and post-mortem under way
Police have cordoned off the scene while the investigation continues, and are in the process of taking statements from the boy’s parents and other guests who were at the hotel at the time. A post-mortem examination was scheduled to take place at 12pm on Monday at the Nicosia mortuary, to be carried out by forensic pathologists Angeliki Papetta and Orthodoxos Orthodoxou. The Sun has approached the Foreign Office for comment on the case.
Not the first such tragedy in Paphos
The incident echoes a previous case in Paphos in 2024, when a British man died after falling roughly 33ft from the third-floor balcony of a luxury hotel while on holiday with friends. He was later found dead in the hotel’s garden.
