A WOMAN HAS given birth on board a vessel in the Mediterranean.
This happened on Sunday when the rescue ship came to the aid of a 25-year-old woman called Collins from Cameroon.
She gave birth to her child, Divan, on board the Dignity I, a vessel operated by Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) in the area.
The mother on board the ship had been working as an assistant nurse in a military hospital in the town of Douala in Cameroon.
Her journey
After two years of doing this work for no pay, she and her husband headed to Banki in the north of the country.
Shortly after, the town was captured by Boko Haram militants, and Collins and her husband were both kidnapped and held out in the bush.
After escaping with the help of an older woman, she made a six-month journey to Libya – leaving her husband behind.
By the time she reached the country she was eight months pregnant.
MSF has said that along the way she was beaten, and many of the women with her were raped.
The rescue
Collins was picked up at around 8am on Sunday morning by the MSF rescue vessel.
With the help of Astrid, the MSF midwife on board, her child was delivered without issues on the boat.
It is the mother’s second child, with her other son, two-year-old Warren, back in her hometown with Collins’ mother.
After the birth the mother and child were transferred onto the Spanish Guardia Civil boat to be brought to Italy.
The most recent figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) put the death toll in the Mediterranean from migrant drowning at over 3,000.
So far this year teams from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have assisted and rescued over 18,000 people on the Mediterranean Sea.
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