Amazing footage shows the rescue of a baby girl born at sea on a migrant boat off Spain’s Canary Islands

Spanish coast guard rescues baby born on inflatable boat carrying migrants to Canary Islandssaid authorities on Wednesday.

A newborn baby was found safe with its mother on Monday, the Coast Guard said in a message on social media.

It was the latest crossing that has seen thousands drown as migrants try to reach the Atlantic islands from Africa.

“Christmas ended in the Canaries with the rescue of a baby who was born while crossing the sea,” said the coast guard. “Our staff in the Canary Islands have started the year in a strong way.”

A coast guard boat “rescued a mother who had given birth from an inflatable boat where she was traveling with a large group of people.” Reuters news agency reported that the baby is a girl.

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

Domingo Trujillo, captain of the agency’s rescue ship, told EFE Spain that the coastguard ship rescued 60 people, including 14 women and four children.

“The child was crying which indicates that he is alive and there are no problems, we asked permission from the woman to undress him and clean him,” he said. “The umbilical cord had already been cut by one of the passengers he was traveling with. All we did was look at the child, give him to his mother and wrap him up to leave.”

Trujillo told Reuters that the rescue team was tired but motivated by their work.

“Almost every night we leave at dawn and come back late,” he told Reuters. “This case is very good, because there was a newborn child, but in all the services we do, even if we are tired, we know that we are helping people who are in distress.”

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

Last June, a cruise ship rescued 68 people sailing on a fishing boat in the Canary Islands. A passenger on the boat from Vancouver, Canada told CBS News that it took several hours to rescue the migrants on board and that at least five people on board had died.