Yeh revealed that his groundnut 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.
The four men revealed that they had hoped to reach Europe and were shocked to learn that they had actually ended up on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil. Two of the men have since been sent back to Nigeria at their request, while Yej and Roman Ebimene Friday have applied for asylum in Brazil.
Yey revealed that the journey to Brazil began on June 27 when a fisherman friend took him by boat to the stern of the Ken Wave, which was docked in Lagos, and left him at the helm. To his surprise, he found three men already there, waiting for the ship to depart. He had never met his new shipmates and was afraid they might throw him overboard at any moment.
As the ship set sail, the refugees revealed that they did everything they could to avoid being discovered by the ship’s crew, fearing that the sailor would throw them into the ocean.
In order not to fall into the water, the men pulled out a net around the corner and tied themselves to it with a rope. It was very difficult and risky to sleep because of the noise of the engine. “I was very happy when we were rescued,” the refugees revealed.
“It was a terrible experience for me,” said Opemipo Matthew Yeh, 38, one of the four Nigerians, in an interview at a church shelter in Sao Paulo. “It wasn’t easy on the ship. I was shaking, I was so scared. But I’m here.”
On their tenth day at sea, four Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a small space above the helm of a cargo ship ran out of food and drink. They survived another four days, they said, drinking seawater before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the southeastern port of Vitoria.
“I’m asking the Brazilian government to have mercy on me,” said Yej, who had already tried to flee Nigeria by boat once.
Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime had left them with little choice but to leave their native Nigeria. Africa’s most populous country has long-standing problems of violence and poverty.
2023-08-01 21:18:00
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