Dramatic photo shows rescue of baby girl born at sea on migrant ship off Spain’s Canary Islands

Spanish coastguards rescued a baby that was born on an inflatable vessel carrying migrants to the Canary Islands, authorities said on Wednesday.

The newborn was recovered safely along with their mother on Monday, the coastguard service said in a message on social media.

They were the latest to make the crossing that has seen thousands drown as migrants try to reach the Atlantic archipelago from Africa.

“Christmas ended in the Canaries with the rescue of a baby born while crossing the sea,” the coastguard said. “Our crews in the Canary Islands have started the year in an intense way.”

A coastguard boat “rescued a mother who had given birth aboard the inflatable craft in which she was traveling with a large group of people.” The Reuters news agency reported that the newborn was a baby girl.

The two were taken by helicopter to Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote, it added.

Domingo Trujillo, captain of the agency’s rescue vessel, told the Spanish wire service EFE that the coastguard ship rescued a total of 60 people, including 14 women and four children.

“The baby was crying, which indicated to us that it was alive and there were no problems, and we asked the woman’s permission to undress her and clean her,” he said. “The umbilical cord had already been cut by one of her fellow passengers. The only thing we did was to check the child, give her to her mother and wrap them up for the trip.”

Trujillo told Reuters that the rescue crews were exhausted but motivated by their mission.

“Almost every night we leave at dawn and arrive back late,” he told Reuters. “This case is very positive, because it was with a newborn, but in all the services we do, even if we are tired, we know we are helping people in distress.”

A record 46,843 undocumented migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024 via the Atlantic route, official data showed this month.

Last June, a cruise ship rescued 68 people adrift on a fishing boat off the Canary Islands. A cruise ship passenger from Vancouver, Canada told CBS News that it took a couple of hours to rescue the migrants on the vessel and that about five people on the boat were dead.