A young mother who gave birth on a packed migrant boat has revealed extraordinary details of her treacherous journey to safety.
Mali national Awa Keita, 18, went into labour aboard the crowded dinghy on Sunday last week while crossing the Atlantic to the Canary Islands – with the picture making headlines around the world.
Veteran captain, Domingo Trujillo, described the atmosphere as being ‘unusually calm’ after his rescue boat reached the 62-person-strong dinghy.
Fellow African migrants had been unaware of Keita’s pregnancy before she went into labour and had her daughter, Aisha.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Keita told of how she had come to conceive after being raped in the Moroccan city of Agadir.
The brave young mother recalled of the birth: ‘Throughout the night, I was crying, shouting.
‘I was wondering what was happening, because my stomach hurt, but I didn’t know.
An astonishing picture taken from a coastguard boat Talia shows a migrant cradling a newborn as others on the dinghy back away to make space for the baby
The woman and her baby were transferred to a hospital in Arrecife and the coastguard confirmed that they were in ‘good health’
Spanish coast guards wearing white suits work on a rescue operation as they tow a rubber boat carrying migrants, including a newborn baby, off the island off the Canary Island of Lanzarote, in Spain, in this handout picture obtained on January 8, 2025
‘The next day I asked some ladies on the boat to have a look at me. I lay down. They put some clothes over me and they told me, yes, it was time to deliver.’
A photo taken on January 6 while coastguard boat Talia towed the migrant dinghy shows a baby with a head-full of hair cradled and surrounded by migrants aboard the boat.
Captain Trujillo reportedly got everyone else off before bringing Keita onto his vessel as he began the five-hour journey back to Lanzarote.
Before the journey was over he called in a helicopter to take the mother and her daughter the rest of the way to the general hospital.
The language barrier meant all the head of paediatrics could say was that Keita ‘didn’t know the father’.
But she later gave harrowing details to the Sunday Times as to how the birth had come about.
Keita said an ‘old man’ had come to ask for her hand in marriage in the Malian capital of her native Bamako but she had not wanted to accept it.
As a result, the young mother – not even 18 at the time – decided to take the route of illegal immigration to Europe.
On board the dinghy were more than a dozen woman and four children, reportedly all of sub-Saharan origin, who braced the treacherous journey over the Atlantic in a bid to reach the Canary Islands
A year ago she crossed the Sahara to the Moroccan city of Agadir where she would eventually find a job in a garden growing chilli peppers.
In circumstances where men would often rob women on their way home, Keita detailed how one day the other women she would normally walk with did not come.
The tearful teenager said she ‘tried to run away’ after two men demanded her phone but that they got hold of her and took her to a nearby house where they raped her.
After discovering her pregnancy she saved up to pay a Moroccan smuggler about 1,500 euros, travelling in her boat for three days and being taken by surprise when she went into labour.
Captain Trujillo said his rescue ship ‘arrived minutes after’ Keita gave birth and that she was still bleeding and in a state of shock.
The veteran said this was the third time a migrant had given birth over the span of his 23-year career and that ‘this kind of thing sweetens our work a little’.
He added 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 Fuerteventura in which a woman had also just given birth, forcing Trujillo to cut the umbilical cord.
‘Although it is still beautiful and an unforgettable experience, cutting it requires a little courage, not just for the sake of cutting it, but for the fear of not doing it right,’ he said.
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 every day give their best to assist thousands of people trying to reach the Canary Islands.’
On board Keita’s dinghy there had been more than a dozen woman and four children, reportedly all of sub-Saharan origin, who braced the risky journey.
The boat was 97 miles from the port in Arrecife, and it took the coastguard five hours to get to the dinghy.
A record-number of 10,457 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea last year, according to Caminando Fronteras.
But this has not put off migrants – most of them Malians, Senegalese or Moroccans – hoping to reach Spanish land, with more than 2000 arriving between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve alone.
