The Spanish Coast Guard rescued a baby born on an inflatable boat with migrants Canary Islandsauthorities said Wednesday.
The newborn was found safely with its mother on Monday, the Coast Guard said post on social media.
They were the last to make the crossing that has resulted in the drowning of thousands of migrants trying to reach the Atlantic archipelago from Africa.
“Christmas ended in the Canary Islands with the rescue of a baby who was born while crossing the sea,” the coast guard said. “Our crews in the Canary Islands have had an intense start to the year.”
MARINE RESCUE/Handout via REUTERS
A Coast Guard boat “rescued a mother who had given birth aboard an inflatable vessel in which she was traveling with a large group of people.” Reuters reported that the newborn was a girl.
The two were airlifted to Arecife on the island of Lanzarote, the report added.
Domingo Trujillo, captain of the agency's rescue vessel, told Spanish television channel EFE that the coast guard ship rescued a total of 60 people, including 14 women and four children.
“The child was crying, which showed us that it was alive and there was no problem, and we asked the woman for permission to undress it and clean it,” he said. “The umbilical cord has already been cut by one of her companions. The only thing we did was examine the child, give him to his mother and wrap him up on the road.”
Trujillo told Reuters the rescuers were exhausted but motivated by their mission.
“Almost every night we fly out at dawn and come back late,” he told Reuters. “This case is very positive because it was with a newborn, but in all the services that we do, even if we are tired, we know that we are helping people in need.”
A record 46,843 undocumented migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024 via the Atlantic route, official figures showed this month.
In June last year, a cruise ship 68 people were saved on a fishing boat off the Canary Islands. A cruise ship passenger from Vancouver, Canada, told CBS News that it took several hours to rescue the migrants on the ship and that about five people on the boat died.