‘I’ve lost my baby’: Migrant mother’s agonising cries as dinghy sinks in the Mediterranean

Six-month-old baby Joseph drowned after migrant boat in which he was travelling sank before reaching Europe

The heartbreaking moment a mother lost her baby in the Mediterranean, after the migrant boat in which they were travelling sank, has been captured on video.

The distraught woman can be seen on a rescue boat screaming for her child.

"I lost my baby. Did you see my baby? Why me? Why my baby?” she says, as she desperately searches for her six-month-old son Joseph.

The incident took place last Thursday and Spanish NGO Open Arms released the footage to raise awareness of the migrant crisis.

Rescuers found her son floating face down and he died on board a rescue boat.

"Listen to the sound of the shipwreck we lived through yesterday," Open Arms tweeted.

"The desperate cry of a mother in search of her six-month-old baby, amid the chaos. We recovered him from the sea in respiratory arrest, he went back, but hours later his small body did not resist. She is the mother of Joseph."

Open Arms buried Joseph on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

"We ask for your forgiveness Joseph. We did our best to get you to safety on time," it tweeted.

"Despite fighting for your life for long hours, we did not succeed. Our immense pain will be the force that prevents more innocent deaths like yours. That the earth Lampedusa it is light."

Joseph and his mother travelled from Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, to Libya before boarding the rubber dinghy alongside more than 100 migrants.

Seven woman and four children were among 113 people who were rescued.

Five bodies were also found.

"The tragedy continues in the Mediterranean with or without a pandemic," said David Llado of Open Arms.

"It is a daily drama. Yesterday we saved 113 people and at this moment we have 259 people on board. Joseph ended up dying while we were waiting for his evacuation."

Almost 1,000 people have died this year in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Open Arms described the Mediterranean as "a cemetery without gravestones".