Joy as four-day-old baby rescued along with 480 migrants in Mediterranean

Rescued: the baby girl, about 32 hours after she was saved with other refugees
REUTERS
Michael Howie3 April 2017

A four-day-old baby rescued along with over 480 migrants from boats found drifting in the Mediterranean Sea.

The baby was travelling on one of two rubber boats carrying over 200 migrants from North and Central Africa, Sri Lanka and Yemen and seen drifting some 22 miles north of the Libyan town of Sabratha - the most frequently used departure point currently used by people smugglers in Libya.

The operation on Saturday was carried out by Spanish NGO Proactiva Open arms and lasted three hours. Migrants were transferred into the former fishing trawler Golfo Azzurro, and reached the Sicilian port town of Augusta on Sunday.

The other rescued migrants, on board two other rubber boats, were rescued by staff on the supply vessel Vos Prudence, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard told Reuters.

Mariam Ohene, a Nigerian migrant holds her baby girl aboard the former fishing trawler Golfo Azzurro after the rescue
REUTERS

Those migrants were due to reach Italy today.

“A week ago, I collected a dead body from the Mediterranean for the first time, and (Saturday) I carried a new life,” said Daniel Calvelo, the 26 year-old who transferred the baby from the raft into the rescue boat.

The baby’s mother, a 29-year old Nigerian woman, and her husband, a 34-year old worker from Ghana, were also rescued. They had lived in Libya for over two years and decided to leave for Europe after they had the baby.

“We want to go to France or Germany, there is a future for our family there,” Richard Ohene, the baby’s father, told Reuters.

Italy has become the main arrival point in Europe for people fleeing persecution and poverty in Africa, most of them crossing the Mediterranean from lawless Libya in search of a better life.

Nearly 600 migrants have died so far this year trying to reach Italy from North Africa, the International Migration Organization (IOM) estimates.

Some 4,600 people are thought to have died last year.

In all, 181,000 migrants reached Italy in 2016, about half of the total who arrived in the European Union by sea.

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