A baby boy was born on a migrant boat near the Canary Islands in Spain

Spain’s rescue service said on Wednesday that a baby boy had been born in a migrant dinghy traveling to the Canary Islands this week. The agency shared a picture of the infant, its mother, and scores of other migrants on the packed vessel.

On January 6, as Spain observed the Epiphany holiday, when local children often receive gifts from the Three Kings, the ship was first sighted off the island of Lanzarote.

The mother and child were both in good health when the Coast Guard ship arrived. There were 60 passengers in all, including four children and 14 women.

The rescue ship’s captain, Domingo Trujillo, informed TVE that they were aware that a pregnant woman was on board.

“The surprise was (that we found) a totally naked baby who was born 10, 15 or 20 minutes earlier,” he explained.

He remembered that the infant was in the hands of someone else close to the mother, who was on the floor of the packed boat.

“I covered him up, took him here (to my chest) and patted him so that he would stop crying,” stated the man.

The onboard medical staff suggested that the mother and child be flown to a hospital.

The helicopter’s commander, Alvaro Serrano Perez, told Reuters:

“Being Three Kings Day this was the best gift we could have received.”

An increase of illegal migrants, primarily from Mali, Senegal, and Morocco, is making it difficult for the seven Spanish islands off the Atlantic coast of northwest Africa to accommodate them.

According to the most recent figures from the Interior Ministry, the archipelago saw 46,843 entries in 2024, which accounted for 73% of the illegal migration to Spain, setting an all-time yearly high for the second consecutive year.