A baby girl, who was born on a packed migrant dinghy headed for Spain's Lanzarote island in the Canaries, was being treated in hospital along with her mother and both were in good condition, medical and regional government authorities said on Thursday.

A photo of a baby born at sea during a perilous crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by migrants from Africa has been made public by Spain’s maritime rescue service.

A record 46,843 migrants reached Spain's Canary Islands illegally in 2024 via the increasingly deadly Atlantic route, the second consecutive year of unprecedented arrival numbers, official data showed on Thursday.

A baby boy was born on a migrant dinghy en route to Spain's Canary Islands this week, Spain's rescue service said on Wednesday, publishing a photograph of the newborn, its mother and dozens of other migrants on the crowded boat.

After a record-breaking year of migrant arrivals, the president of Spain’s Canary Islands called the situation on the islands “unsustainable” on Monday.

The number beats the previous record, set in 2023, as a recent report also points at a peak in the number of deaths recorded in the dangerous Atlantic migration route.

Coastguards in the Canary Islands rescued a mother who had given birth to a baby while making the crossing over the Atlantic Ocean in a migrant boat. The rescue team on the coastguard ship Talía shared a number of photos on social media of the moment they came to the aid of the newborn on Monday.