Investigators are puzzled by the case of a five-year-old child of African origin who was abandoned on a cargo train at the Brenner Pass. The little boy was found with a backpack containing women's clothing, understands Italian and was suffering from hypothermia when the Italian Railway Police (Polizia Ferroviaria, or Polfer) rescued him.

Numerous questions surround the circumstances which led to the abandonment of the 5-year-old child named Anthony. How did this young African child get to the Italian-Austrian border? Where are the adults that were with him? Whose was the backpack that was found with him? And how long had he been in Italy, since he understands the language?

On the verge of freezing to death

A freezing wind was blowing at dawn that morning at the Brenner Pass. The temperature had dropped to four degrees below zero and the entire landscape was covered in snow. A Polfer patrol heard screams for help at 7:20 AM coming from a cargo train. Railway personnel assisted in finding the boy shortly thereafter in an empty carriage used to transport cars. “For an hour the child just trembled despite the fact that he was already in a warm location. Doctors say that it would have been too late if we had found him 10 to 15 minutes later,” Polfer station commander Stefano Linossi said. A doctor examined the little boy on the scene prior to his being taken to the hospital.

Social services take child into care

As soon as he recovered slightly, the boy told investigators his name and that he is from Sierra Leone. Anthony's condition has improved and he is now under the care of the Bolzano provincial social services, who are exercising extreme caution to protect the child. Decisions about the child's future will be made by a child protection court. He may be placed in foster care until his parents are found. The backpack containing women's clothing means it is likely he had been accompanied by a woman, possibly his mother, but the train drivers transiting through the Brenner Pass that night did not notice anything and no clues emerged from a search of the area. Governor Arno Kompatscher said, “We have activated the task force to analyze the situation along the Brenner line alongside the security forces.” Kompatscher noted that cargo trains have long been checked by Italian police in cooperation with their Austrian counterparts. “The number of asylum seekers has been dropping in recent weeks, but we must get a clear picture of the situation at the Brenner Pass,” he added.

Previous migrant deaths at the Brenner Pass

The incident could have been the latest in a long string of tragedies along the Brenner railway. Last November a young Eritrean man died in Bolzano when he tried to get onto a cargo train moving towards Austria, and a few days later two migrants who had tried to hide on a train were crushed and killed by a lorry as it was offloading its cargo. In recent months, other migrants have been hit by trains as they were walking along the Brenner railway northwards. Some of their names are not yet known and may never be so.