When Spanish rescuers arrived to help a boat off the coast of the Canary Island Fuerteventura, they found a mother who had given birth to her baby in the rubber dinghy, alongside around 60 other migrants.
On Tuesday, January 18, Spanish rescue workers came to the help of a new-born, 44 kilometers off the coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands archipelago.
According to Helena Maleno from the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) that tracks migrant journeys towards Spain, "the baby is a boy." On Twitter, Maleno said she hoped that the “brave mother and baby arrived safe and sound.”
The baby was born at sea on the journey in a rubber dinghy, alongside around 60 other migrants. "The mother and baby are fine and are headed, along with all the other occupants of the dinghy back towards the port of Gran Tarajal,” wrote the Spanish news agency EFE.
Rescue began late at night
According to EFE, the rescue began around 11 pm in the evening, when the boat was spotted south of the island of Majorera. It concluded around 2 am when all the migrants were brought safely to shore. Reportedly the migrants were all of North African origin.
This is not the first time that a baby has been born at sea in a migrant boat. On April 29, 2021, the Spanish coast guard rescued a baby who was just a few hours old. She was born in the middle of the ocean on board a boat with about 40 other migrants. In this case, the baby and her mother, who were from sub-Sahara Africa, were taken to hospital on Gran Canaria where they were cared for. At the time, the Red Cross reported the baby was "well."
The Atlantic route towards the Canary Islands has become more popular in recent years. In part due to increased controls on the Mediterranean route by various coast guard forces. But the distance, tides and weather in the Atlantic Ocean make it very dangerous.
2021: A deadly year
On Sunday, at least 43 migrants died after their boat capsized off the coast of Tarfaya in southern Morocco, said Helena Maleno from Caminando Fronteras. Among those on board, the NGO said, there were three babies and 14 women. The group had been hoping to reach the Canary Islands, which are a few hundred kilometers from the African coast at that point. Only two pieces of wreckage have been recovered so far.
The NGO is still worried about the fate of a boat containing roughly 60 migrants who were also headed for the Canary Islands. Since January 5, there has been no sign of that boat which reportedly contained eight children.
Another migrant boat has been reported missing too. On January 18, an alert was put out to help a boat at sea carrying around 35 migrants. It was first spotted by a Danish oil tanker, around 210 kilometers north-west of Lanzarote. Searches to localize the boat were ongoing at the time of writing.
In 2021, according to Caminando Fronteras 4,404 migrants died in their attempt to reach Spain. The numbers of estimated deaths makes 2021 the worst year for deaths since 2015.
This article was translated and adapted from the French original by Emma Wallis.