11 children hospitalized after voyage to Spain in raft

OVIEDO, Spain

Eleven children were hospitalized, including two babies in intensive care, after they were rescued off the coast of Spain’s Canary Islands, local media reported Thursday.

After winter weather brought irregular arrivals down for a few months, this week the Atlantic archipelago has witnessed an uptick in migrants making the dangerous voyage in search of a better life in Europe.

The Red Cross warns that the recent arrivals fit a different profile, with more women and children on the rafts than before.

The scene on Tuesday night was exceptionally dramatic. Coast guards rescued a ship with 14 men, nine children and 29 women.

The Red Cross healthcare workers who attended to the migrants noticed that one baby girl had no pulse. The two-year-old was suffering from cardiorespiratory arrest.

The baby’s first experience on European land was on a cement dock with the hands of the Red Cross workers upon her tiny body.

After a few minutes of emergency response, she began to breathe again. The entire scene was captured by a local photographer.

“It was the toughest moment of my life,” Paula Atrochero, the nurse on the scene, told the radio station COPE. “If just ten more minutes would have passed, we probably wouldn’t have been able to save her.”

The baby was quickly taken to the hospital in Las Palmas, but remains in critical condition.

The conditions of the boat she traveled on were dire. A lack of food and water meant many of the passengers had been drinking water from the sea to stay alive. Several were also suffering from hypothermia.

On Wednesday night, another 115 migrants were rescued at sea – with around 20 women and 15 minors aboard. One man was found dead on the raft, bringing the known death toll of migrants on this route so far this year to 18.

In total, the main hospital in Las Palmas said on Thursday it is treating 11 children, two of whom are two years old and in critical condition, for damage caused by the dangerous voyage. Five adults are also hospitalized, with two in critical condition.

Last year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canary Islands migration route exploded in popularity. Just over 23,000 people took the treacherous journey – almost an eight-fold increase on the previous year.

This year has only seen numbers increase. Between Jan. 1 and March 15, some 2,580 people arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, more than twice as many as in the same period last year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Last year, 1,851 people died trying to reach the Canary Islands, according to Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras.