A mother who gave birth on a packed migrant boat has revealed extraordinary details of her treacherous journey.
Awa Keita, 18, had a daughter on board the dinghy last Sunday as she made the Atlantic crossing to the Canary Islands.
The bittersweet moment took place nearly 100 miles from the boat’s destination and there were no flowers in sight, but did witness the little girl being showered with clothes and compliments by fellow passengers.
Veteran captain Domingo Trujillo described the atmosphere as “unusually calm” after his rescue boat reached the 62-person dinghy.
It came as fellow African migrants were unaware of Keita’s pregnancy before she went into labor on Sunday and had her daughter Aisha.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Keita told how she became pregnant after being raped in the Moroccan city of Agadir.
The brave young mother recalled the birth: “All night I cried and screamed.
‘I wondered what was going on because my stomach was hurting, but I didn’t know.
An astonishing photo taken from a coastguard boat Talia shows a migrant cradling a newborn baby as others on the dinghy move back to make room for the baby
The woman and her baby were taken to a hospital in Arrecife and the coastguard confirmed they were in ‘good health’
Spanish coastguards, dressed in white suits, work a rescue operation as they tow a rubber boat carrying migrants, including a newborn baby, from the Canary Island of Lanzarote in Spain, in this handout photo obtained on January 8, 2025
‘The next day I asked some ladies on the boat to come and watch me. I lay down. They put some clothes on me and said, yes, it was time to deliver.”
A stunning photo taken on January 6 as Coast Guard boat Talia towed the migrant boat shows a baby with a head full of hair surrounded by migrants on board the boat.
Captain Trujillo reportedly made everyone else disembark before bringing Keita onto his ship as he began the five-hour journey back to Lanzarote.
Before the trip was over, he called in a helicopter to take the mother and her daughter the rest of the way to General Hospital.
Due to the language barrier, the head of pediatrics could only say that Keita “didn’t know the father.”
But she later gave harrowing details to the Sunday Times about how the birth came about.
Keita said an “old man” had come to ask her to marry him in the Malian capital of her native Bamako, but she had not wanted to accept.
As a result, the young mother – then not yet 18 years old – decided to follow the route of illegal immigration to Europe.
On board the dinghy were more than a dozen women and four children, all reportedly of sub-Saharan descent, who made the treacherous journey across the Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to reach the Canary Islands.
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A year ago, she crossed the Sahara to the Moroccan city of Agadir, where she would eventually find a job in a garden growing chili peppers.
In circumstances where men often robbed women on their way home, Keita explained how one day the other women she would normally walk with did not come.
The tearful teen said she “tried to run away” after two men demanded her phone, but they caught her and took her to a nearby house where they raped her.
After discovering she was pregnant, she saved up to pay a Moroccan smuggler about 1,500 euros. She traveled in her boat for three days and was surprised when she went into labor.
Captain Trujillo said his rescue ship arrived “minutes after” Keita gave birth and she was still bleeding and in shock.
The veteran said this was the third time a migrant had given birth in his 23-year career and that “things like this make our work a little more pleasant.”
He added that he had experienced a similar situation in 2020, when the Salvamar Mizar – a unit in which he was the skipper – rescued the occupants of a boat off the coast of Fuerteventura in which a woman had also given birth, forcing Trujillo to cutting the umbilical cord. .
“While it is still beautiful and an unforgettable experience, cutting it requires a bit of courage, not just for the sake of cutting, but also for fear of not doing it right,” he said.
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The captain added in a statement on social media: ‘We take this opportunity to express our admiration for Domingo and the rest of the crew, who do their best every day to help thousands of people trying to reach the Canary Islands reaches.’
On board Keita’s dinghy were more than a dozen women and four children, all reportedly of sub-Saharan descent, who had prepared the risky journey.
The boat was 150 kilometers from the port of Arrecife and it took the coast guard five hours to get to the dinghy.
A record 10,457 migrants died trying to reach Spain by sea last year, according to Caminando Fronteras.
But this has not stopped the migrants – most of them Malians, Senegalese or Moroccans – from reaching Spanish land. More than 2,000 arrive between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve alone.