Four Nigerian stowaways rescued after 14 days at sea balanced on ship’s rudder

Four Nigerian stowaways have survived a two-week voyage across the Atlantic perched perilously on the rudder of a cargo ship.

The four men who were on the dangerous journey ran out of food and drink 10 days into their journey . They traveled some 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) – but survived another four days by drinking the sea water crashing just metres below them, according to their account.

They were rescued by Brazilian federal police as the ship reached the southeastern port of Vitoria.

The risk taken by the four men has been described as a reflection of the magnitude of risks migrants are prepared to take for a shot at a better life.

“It was a terrible experience for me,” said 38-year-old Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, one of the four men, in an interview at a Sao Paulo church shelter.

“On board it is not easy. I was shaking, so scared. But I’m here.”

Their relief at being rescued soon gave way to surprise.

The four stowaways said they had hoped to reach Europe and were shocked to learn they had in fact landed on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil.

Two of the men have since been returned to Nigeria upon their request, while two – Mr Yeye and another man named Roman Ebimene Friday – have applied for asylum in Brazil.

Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime had left them with little option but to abandon Nigeria.

Mr Friday, 35, said his journey to Brazil began on June 27, when a fisherman friend rowed him up to the stern of the Liberian-flagged Ken Wave, docked in Lagos, and left him by the rudder.

To his surprise, he found three men already there, waiting for the ship to depart.

Mr Friday said he was terrified. He had never met his new shipmates and feared they could toss him into the sea at any moment.

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Once the ship was moving, Mr Friday said the four men made every effort not to be discovered by the ship’s crew.

“Maybe if they catch you they will throw you in the water,” he said. “So we taught ourselves never to make a noise.”

Spending two weeks perched above the choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean was perilous.

To prevent themselves from falling in, Mr Friday said the men rigged up a net around the rudder and tied themselves to it with a rope.

When he looked down, he said he could see “big fish like whales and sharks.” Due to the cramped conditions and the noise of the engine, sleep was rare and risky. “I was very happy when we got rescued,” he said.

“I pray the government of Brazil will have pity on me,” added Mr Friday, who had already attempted to flee Nigeria by ship once before but was arrested by authorities there.

Mr Yeye, a pentecostal minister from Lagos state, said his peanut and palm oil farm was destroyed by floods this year, leaving him and his family homeless. He hopes they can now join him in Brazil.

Father Paolo Parise, a priest at the Sao Paulo shelter, said he had come across other cases of stowaways, but never one so dangerous. Their journey paid testament to lengths people will go in search of a new start, he said. “People do unimaginable and deeply dangerous things.”

In November, three stowaways survived an 11-day voyage from Nigeria to the Canary Islands perched precariously on the rudder of an oil tanker.