Anti-immigrant sentiment is rampant in a number of Western countries. Immigrants are easy scapegoats when you’re discussing the problems of a nation. Those in favor of stricter borders rarely consider why people may need to leave their home countries to begin with. For one woman, it was not only about her life, it was also about the life of her unborn child.
For her, the reward of making it from Morocco to Spain’s Canary Islands was worth journeying across the Atlantic Ocean while she was more than nine months pregnant.
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A newborn was delivered at sea on January 6, 2025, the Associated Press reports. The child was one of several people traveling from Tan-Tan, a province in Morocco, to Spain’s Canary Islands, Reuters reports. A photo, released by Spain’s maritime rescue service showed the retrieval of the infant.
The boat contained other migrants who endured the treacherous journey across the Atlantic Ocean in a rubber boat. The vessel was so packed with winter-coat wearing occupants that many were straddling its side.
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The infant is a baby girl, CBS News reported. The child and her mother were taken by helicopter to Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Domingo Trujillo, the captain of the rescue ship, told the Spanish wire service EFE that they rescued a total of 60 people, including 14 women and four children. The baby and mother are in good condition.
“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 [the baby],” Trujillo told Reuters. “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.”
Overnight, rescue services recovered two more boats carrying 144 more people. Trujillo said the rescue crews are exhausted but understand they are doing important work.
“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.”
This is not the first time rescuers pulled a newborn from the water. Trujillo performed a similar operation in 2020, where another baby was born at sea, the rescue service said.
According to the Spanish migration charity Walking Borders, 9,757 people died traveling from West Africa to the Canary Islands in 2024. Women on the route from Morocco and the Western Sahara often suffer sexual violence, discrimination, racism, and deportations in transit. After their discharge from the hospital, the mother and child will go to a humanitarian center for migrants.
