A teenager has been praised for rescuing a baby from drowning in a devastating shipwreck that killed at least 30 people.
The boy, 17, swam to save the tot and held her above the water until a rescue team arrived in the Mediterranean Sea.
Crew threw the teen a floatation device to pull him and another survivor to safety and urgently treated the four-month-old baby who had stopped breathing.
The heroic moment was captured in a clip that was shared by French media company Brut.
"I am a good swimmer and I went to help people," he said according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The charity sent a Geo Barents rescue ship to the site of the shipwreck where the teen, from Togo, was found clinging to the wreckage.
French journalist Michael Bunel, who was onboard the rescue ship, said he could hear the boy shouting "there's a baby, there's a baby" when the crew arrived.
The rubber dinghy had been at sea for nine days before it was detected and found along with with a pregnant woman onboard.
She could not be resuscitated and died onboard the rescue boat, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration.
Meanwhile the four-month-old baby was reunited with her mother and the pair were evacuated to Malta, according to MSF.
A total 71 people were rescued from the shipwreck where some people suffered fuel burns caused when the skin is exposed to petrol mixed with seawater.
Survivors on the rescue boat had to wait almost five days to be brought to shore and were only allowed to leave the ship on Saturday in Taranto, Italy.
Juan Matías Gil, a search and rescue representative at MSF, told the Guardian: "This traumatic event is a deadly consequence of the growing inaction and disengagement of European and other border states, including Italy and Malta, in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Tragedies at sea continue to cost thousands of lives, and these people are being lost on Europe’s doorstep, with absolute silence and indifference from EU states.”
Charities have repeatedly said that the European Union is failing to save refugees who try to cross the Mediterranean by asking Libya's coastguard to intercept any boats trying to make the crossing.
In the five years between 2017 and 2021, at least 8,500 people died or went missing and 95,000 were returned to Libya after trying to cross the Mediterranean.
