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10-01-2025
MADRID: A baby was born on a crowded migrant dinghy which travelled from Africa to the Canary Islands this week, Spanish coast guards say.
They have published a picture of the baby boy who was rescued on alongside his mother and scores of other migrants.
The crowded inflatable raft was first spotted on 6 January off the island of Lanzarote.
The rescuers believe they reached the vessel soon after the baby was born on the day Spain celebrated the Epiphany, a Christian holiday where children traditionally receive gifts.
The captain of the rescue boat said they knew there was a pregnant woman on board, but were surprised to find “a totally naked baby who was born 10,15 or 20 minutes earlier”.
Domingo Trujillo said when they reached the vessel, the mother was lying on the floor of the packed raft while the baby was being held by another passenger.
Upon medical advice, the baby and its mother were taken via helicopter to hospital on Lanzarote. No other complications have been reported by authorities.
“It being Three Kings Day, this was the best gift we could have received,” the commander of the helicopter, Álvaro Serrano Pérez, told Reuters news agency.
The ocean crossing from Africa to the Canary Islands is notoriously dangerous.
More than 46,800 undocumented migrants made the route last year to reach the islands, Spanish government data this month showed.
The Christian feast day of Epiphany, when observers celebrate the visit to Jesus by the Magi commonly known as the Three Kings, or Wise Men is widely celebrated in Spain.
Children polish their shoes on the eve of the event known as “El Dia de los Reyes” (the Day of the Kings) and leave them ready for the Three Kings Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar to put their presents in.
In October last year, a group of Sub-Saharan African men are playing bingo in a conference room of a hotel near the northern Spanish city of León.
They laugh and celebrate when their numbers are called out, but many of these asylum seekers have harrowing stories.
Among them is Michael, who fled Ghana to escape a violent feud that saw his sister and father killed. After travelling by land to Morocco, he paid a trafficker who put him on an inflatable boat crammed with people which took him to the Canary Islands.
“I was so happy, because I knew all my troubles, and the people trying to kill me, were behind me,” he says. “Because once you are in Spain you are safe.”
In Ghana he worked as a petrol pump attendant and a storekeeper. He also started studying human resource management, which he hopes to be able to continue in Spain once he has settled.
“Spain is one of the most respected countries in the world,” he says. “Being here is an opportunity for me.”
Around 170 asylum seekers are staying in this hotel, in the town of Villaquilambre, which has been converted into a migrant centre.
They are among the many thousands of people who take the maritime route between the African coast and Spain each year.
So far this year, more than 42,000 undocumented migrants have arrived in Spain, an increase of 59% on 2023, the vast majority having undertaken the perilous crossing to the Canary Islands.
The archipelago’s difficulties in managing these large numbers have contributed to a fierce political debate about immigration, mirroring that in many other European countries. In Spain the controversy is driven in great part by the far-right Vox party, which frequently describes the trend as an “invasion”. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
