A Nigerian woman has given birth to a baby boy on a rescue ship in the Mediterranean, after the lady along with her husband and other two sons were saved from an overcrowded rubber dinghy.

Medicins Sans Frontiers said the baby boy was born on Monday morning (12 September) on MV Aquarius, a rescue vessel, in partnership with SOS Mediterranee and MSF. The medical charity added that the boy was born in international waters and his nationality is still under debate.

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MSF communications officer said that such events were extremely rare. However, a woman from Cameroon did give birth to a baby in May.

The mother of the baby boy, Faith 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 having contractions for three days."

A Mid wife, Jonquil Nicholl, who was on board of the rescue ship and delivered the baby said the birth was "normal... in dangerously abnormal conditions".

She was quoted by the Guardian as saying, "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 happen in 2016? That families, vulnerable people, pregnant women, tiny babies and unborn babies are forced to risk their lives in the Mediterranean Sea when they should be receiving assistance and protection."

The parents of the baby Otis and Faith, along with their other two sons 7-year-old Victory and 5-year-old Rollres, were among the 253 people who were rescued from two rubber dinghies.

The medical charity added that among the rescued, 97 were under 18, 10 children were under the age of five and four babies were under one-year of age, including the newborn.

Thousands of refugees risk their lives crossing from Libya to Europe in search of safety and security. At least 3,700 people have reportedly died last year while making the dangerous journey.