UPDATE: Mother and child die after falling overboard from Sweden-Poland ferry

The Stena Spirit, en route between Karlskrona in Sweden and Gdynia in Poland, alerted rescue services after the incident.

“First we received a report that one person had fallen overboard, then it turned out to be two,” said Lars Blom, chief of rescue operations at the Swedish Maritime Administration’s Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC).

“The child had fallen into the sea and the woman had jumped in after,” Blom told AFP.

According to Swedish media reports, the child is a seven-year-old boy.

Blom told AFP that both helicopters and boats had been deployed to aid in the search, after they received the report at 4.20pm.

It took about an hour before the two were located and they were then taken to a hospital in Karlskrona, though Blom said their condition was unknown. There was no further news early on Friday morning.

According to the Swedish Maritime Administration the woman was found by a helicopter while the child was found by a rescue boat.

Helicopters, several Nato ships that were taking part in an exercise in the area at the time, and the Stena Spirit all took part in the search for the pair.

The woman was described as being in her mid-30s. She and the child are understood to be Polish citizens.