In the early morning darkness off the coast of the Canary Islands, a voice crackled over the radio on the bridge of the Talía rescue ship. The message was urgent: A small inflatable boat, overflowing with dozens of migrants, was adrift in the open ocean. And on that unsteady craft, a woman was about to give birth.
For Domingo Trujillo, the 57-year-old captain of the Talía, the call set in motion a dramatic rescue operation that would push his crew to their limits – and ultimately save two precious lives on the perilous migrant route from Africa to Europe.
A Race Against Time in Treacherous Waters
Trujillo and his crew of eight set out immediately from the port of Arrecife, speeding towards the coordinates of the imperiled migrant boat some 97 nautical miles away. They knew that every minute counted.
“We’d arrived for the tail end of the birth because the baby was still naked,” Trujillo recounted of the scene that greeted them after five tense hours at sea. The small inflatable dinghy was packed with 64 men, women and children – and in the bow lay the exhausted mother and her newborn daughter.
An Island of Calm Amid Chaos
What struck Trujillo was the eerie calm that hung over the desperate scene. Unlike the normal commotion of a rescue, with panicked survivors scrambling to save themselves, this one was quiet. “It was extraordinary because everyone was pointing to show us that there was a woman there,” he said.
With gentle waves and cloudy but clear skies, Trujillo made the call to first transfer the other migrants to the Talía to give more space to tend to the mother and infant. Once onboard his ship, the crew sprang into action.
“We did what we could to make her comfortable in the sick bay bed and put the baby on her breast.”
– Captain Domingo Trujillo
The Long Journey to Safety
Knowing the return voyage would take hours, Trujillo and his crew carefully monitored the mother’s vital signs as the Talía cut through the rolling swells back to port. They plied her with water, juice and warm smiles to make the journey more bearable.
An hour from land, a helicopter swooped in to airlift mother and child to a hospital in Lanzarote. There, the newborn girl – revealed to be healthy despite her harrowing first hours – remains under observation with her recovering mother close by.
A Bittersweet Victory in a Wider Tragedy
For Trujillo, a veteran of countless rescues in his 23 years patrolling these deadly waters, this operation was especially poignant. While immensely proud of his crew’s lifesaving efforts, he knows it is but one bright spot in an unfolding humanitarian disaster.
Tens of thousands of migrants risk the dangerous Atlantic crossing to the Canary Islands each year, fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa. Data from the Spanish Red Cross paints a grim picture:
- 46,843 irregular arrivals to the Canaries in 2024
- 10,457 people dead or missing on the Atlantic route (Jan-Dec 2024)
- 4,971 children among those making the perilous journey last year
“It’s really sad, and I don’t know what the solution is, but it leaves its mark,” said Trujillo of the crisis. The captain longs to reunite with the mother and baby under happier circumstances. “I want to see them in a very different situation to the one we met in,” he said.
For now, he takes solace in this small victory amid an ocean of anguish. “I want to see that the world does sometimes work and that people in need are looked after,” Trujillo reflected. Against all odds, a newborn girl has been given a fighting chance – thanks to the compassion and skill of her rescuers on the open sea.
