Baby born at sea on migrant dinghy en route to Spain

By Kathy Rose O’Brien, CNN

(CNN) — A baby girl was born at sea on a migrant dinghy en route to Spain from Africa on Monday, according to the Spanish maritime rescue service.

Rescue workers from Spain’s Canary Islands, encountered the inflatable raft, containing 60 people including 14 women and four children, off the coast of the island of Lanzarote, telling local media they believed the mother had given birth just 15 minutes before.

Describing it as a “beautiful” and “very emotional” experience, Domingo Trujillo, the captain of the rescue vessel Guardamar Talía, told Spanish television’s RTVE (Radio Television Espana) that it was not his first encounter with a baby born on a migrant boat. In 2020, he cut the umbilical cord of a child born on a similar journey.

The Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago of seven islands off the coast of northwestern Africa that experienced a 17% rise in irregular migration in 2024, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry. Migrants come mainly from Mali, Senegal and Morocco, according to Frontex, the European Union border agency.

It attributed the surge to a “deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the West Africa regions,” with data showing the route to be Europe’s new migration front line.

This Atlantic migration route is the deadliest in the world according to Caminando Fronteras, an NGO which defends migrants’ rights.

It said in a recent report that at least 10,457 migrants died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by sea between January 1 and December 5 last year, 9,757 of them on the Atlantic route.

“Mass death is continuing at Europe’s borders,” journalist Sally Hayden told CNN. “In the past, West Africans often told me they were too frightened to take the so-called “Atlantic route,” because they know the risks include getting lost or delayed and dying of dehydration, one by one, at sea.”

Hayden, the author of the award-winning “My Fourth Time We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route,” went on to say the fact many are risking their lives this way “shows how difficult other routes have become, and it also underlines that – no matter how much the EU tries to harden its borders – people will not stop trying to reach places where they feel they can have a more secure, safer and better life.”

Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a report last week that there were almost 64,000 “irregular migrants” to the country in 2024 and that 73% (46,843) of them came through the Canary Islands.

The migrant pressure on the Canary Islands is causing political tensions in Madrid. In October, the opposition Partido Popular (PP) broke off negotiations with the minority coalition government on measures to address the archipelago’s “migration crisis,” citing its handling of the issue.

Spain has been considering setting up an emergency reception center for migrants arriving on its shores at an airport near Madrid, according to multiple reports last year.

Two further migrant boats were rescued on Thursday near the Canaries, one with 84 occupants and another with “60 sub-Saharan people,” Spain’s maritime rescue agency said in a post on X.

The-CNN-Wire
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