A company of Nigerian stowaways have managed to survive a dangerous 14-day journey in a cargo ship’s rudder, across the Atlantic by consuming the ocean water crashing below them, at the belly of the ship, according to news reports.
The four men, who eventually found themselves in Brazil had exhausted their food and drinks on the 10th day of the journey that started on June 27. They thereafter determined to turn to what Mother Nature could proffer them.
Roman Ebimene Friday, one of the Nigerian survivors had told journalists that he had ‘suddenly’ found himself in Brazil even though he had embarked on a trip to Europe.
“When the federal police came, I did not know where I was. They asked me if I knew where I was, and I told them no. Then they told me that this country is Brazil.”
Friday, aged 35 and another stowaway, Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, aged 38, have decided to stay back in Brazil and apply for asylum but the other two men have requested to travel back to Nigeria.
It was said that the men had run away from Nigeria due to the state of its economy, as well as the political instability and high crime rate.
Friday had reported that a fisherman acquaintance had rowed him up to the stern of a Liberian-flagged Ken Wave cargo ship in Lagos State on June 27, and had found the three other stowaways already in the vessel’s rudder area, waiting to set sail.
It is very remarkable, the human spirit, to fight and survive in the face of odds.
