Nigerian stowaways who survived 14-day trip seen on ship rudder

Four Nigerian stowaways were captured in gripping images on top of a cargo ship’s rudder after they survived a harrowing 14-day journey, during which they ran out of food and drank their own urine.

The migrants, who hoped to reach Europe, were shocked to find out they had actually arrived in Brazil after the roughly 3,500-mile journey sailing on the Liberian-flagged vessel.

“It was a terrible experience for me,” ​Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, 38, told Reuters at a church shelter in São Paulo, Brazil/

“On board it is not easy. I was shaking, so scared, but I’m here,” the Pentecostal minister from Lagos state added.

The four men — who huddled in a tiny space above the giant rudder – said they ran out of food on the 10^th day of the voyage and survived by drinking ocean water that splashed around them.

They also resorted to drinking their own urine, the Times of London reported.

Brazilian police rescued the desperate group in the southeastern port of Vitória, according to the news outlet.

Two of the men have been returned to their homeland upon their request, while Yeye and Roman Ebimene Friday, 35, of Bayelsa state, have applied for asylum in Brazil.

“I pray the government of Brazil will have pity on me,” Friday told Reuters.

He had previously attempted to flee Nigeria by ship due to economic hardship, political instability and crime but was arrested by authorities in the country.

The remarkable trip to Brazil began June 27, when a fisherman rowed Friday to the ship, the Ken Wave, which was docked in Lagos and dropped him near the rudder – where he was surprised to see three other men.

He had never met his new shipmates and was afraid they’d throw him off at any moment, Reuters reported.

After they embarked on the crossing, the four men were terrified that the ship’s crew would toss them off if they were discovered on their perilous perch.

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

He said they rigged up a net around the rudder and tied themselves to it with a rope to prevent themselves from falling off when they dozed off.

Friday said they could see “big fish like whales and sharks” mere feet below them.

“People do unimaginable and deeply dangerous things,” Father Paolo Parise, a priest at the São Paulo shelter, told Reuters, adding that he had come across other cases of stowaways.

Last year, three other Nigerian stowaways survived a similar ordeal on Maltese-flagged ship’s rudder during an 11-day journey to the Canary Islands. They eventually sought asylum in Spain.

The ship, which left Lagos on Nov. 17, covered about 2,000 miles to the Spanish territory off northwest Africa.

In 2020, a 14-year-old Nigerian boy lasted 15 days on a ship’s rudder after a trip from Lagos. He also drank salt water.