Harrowing moment medics revive migrant toddler rescued from shipwreck off coast of Gran Canaria
HARROWING pictures show medics resuscitating a toddler on the quayside after she was rescued from a shipwreck off Gran Canaria.
The young girl was close to death when a Coast Guard ship carrying 52 migrants docked in the port of Arguineguin last night.
Emergency workers from the Red Cross rushed to perform CPR as soon as she was carried ashore to a concrete pier.
"Call an ambulance, call 112," one of the health workers can be heard saying in video footage of the drama by the Reuters agency.
Both medics then say with relief: "She's alive".
More health workers carried the toddler, wrapped in a red blanket, to a waiting ambulance.
She was one of ten people including six children and a pregnant woman who were rushed to hospital with hypothermia.
Among those admitted were a 25-year-old woman and a two-year-old child in a serious condition, the Canary Islands emergency services said.
Other migrants waited patiently on the deck while those in need of medical attention were taken ashore.
They were among 52 people from sub-Saharan Africa who were rescued from a sinking vessel in the Atlantic Ocean south of Gran Canaria.
Nine children and 29 women were saved.
A Spanish search and rescue plane was today still looking for about 200 people on four migrant boats after they sent distress signals.
It was not clear if the boat rescued last night was one of those they were searching for.
The Canary Islands have become a main route for migrants trying to reach Europe, with an eight-fold increase in the numbers arriving last year compared with 2019.
Hundreds have died after attempting the crossing in rickety, overcrowded boats with unreliable engines, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said.
In 2019, at least 63 people died when a boat heading for the Canaries sank off Mauritania.
Last year some 23,000 people successfully crossed while 849 were reported dead or missing.
Around 2,600 people have survived the dangerous crossing by boat so far this year.