Baby ‘Miracle’ born on rescue ship as Italy arrivals surge

A baby boy named Miracle has been born on board a humanitarian ship - a bright spot as the tide of migrants risking sea crossings from Libya to Italy has increased as the weather has improved. There have been more than 1,800 migrants rescued by humanitarian ships, and Italy’s navy and coastguard vessels over the past three days, and one body was recovered, an Italian coastguard official said. Arrivals from Libya, a staging post for people smugglers, have plummeted 85 percent this year from last as Italy provided support to the Libyan coastguard and to municipalities along the coast to stop migrant boats. But good weather or other factors seem to have reversed that trend, for now. Migrants rescued by the Aquarius spoke of horrific conditions and violence in Libya, including the mother of the baby born on Saturday. “Both the mother and baby are doing very well,” Amoin Soulemane, the midwife on the Aquarius, said. Miracle, weighing 2.8 kg, was the sixth baby born on the rescue ship, but the first this year, King said. When Miracle was brought onto deck by the midwife, the migrants on board celebrated his birth by singing and dancing — a far cry from the conditions they said they had came from in Libya. The mother, whose name was not given, told MSF she had been “held captive, beaten, given very little food and extorted for money for release” during the year she was in Libya.