Nigerian Woman Welcomes Baby Boy Aboard Mediterranean Rescue Ship

A pregnant Nigerian woman identified as Faith Oqunbor who joined an overcrowded rubber boat in Libya in a desperate bid to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe has welcomed a baby boy aboard a rescue ship.

According to reports, Faith, who was already having contractions when she embarked on the risky trip, welcomed the baby aboard a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) rescue ship shortly after she and her family; husband and sons aged 5 and 7, were saved from the overcrowded rubber boat.

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Faith reportedly said:

“I was very stressed on the rubber boat, sitting on the floor of the boat with the other women and children, panicking that I would go into labour. I could feel my baby moving. He would move down and then move back up again. I had been contractions for three days.”

The midwife who delivered the baby, Jonqui Nicholl, told BBC:

“I am filled with horror at the thought of what would have happened if this baby had arrived 24 hours earlier – in that unseaworthy rubber boat, with fuel on the bottom where the women sit, crammed in with no space to move, at the mercy of the sea.

And 48 hours previously they were waiting on a beach in Libya not knowing what was ahead of them. How can this still this still happen in 2016?…”

Faith and her husband have reportedly named the baby boy Newman Otas Oqunbor.

Photo credit: Alva White