THIS is the shocking moment a group of stowaways who perched on a ship’s rudder for 14 days and drank their own pee to survive are rescued.
The four men made the mammoth trip from Lagos, Nigeria, to Vitoria, Brazil, as they fled economic hardship at home.
ReutersFour men were rescued from a ship’s rudder after stowing away on a crossing from Nigeria to Brazil[/caption]
ReutersTwo of them, Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye and Roman Ebimene Friday, have now applied for asylum in the country[/caption]
They ran out of food and water two weeks in and had to drink their own urine and seawater just to make it across the Atlantic.
Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, 38, said: “It was a terrible experience for me. On board it is not easy.
“I was shaking, so scared. But I’m here.”
Fellow stowaway Roman Ebimene Friday, 35, added: “I was very happy when we got rescued.”
A clip of the moment the men were rescued showed a Brazilian police officer passing them a large water bottle as they straddle the rudder.
The group managed to put a net up around the giant metal fin to stop them from falling into the ocean while sleeping.
However, sleep was rare due to the constant engine noise, leaving the men exhausted, underfed and dying of thirst.
Not only that, but they remained almost entirely silent the whole way for fear of being discovered.
Yeye and Friday have now applied for asylum in Brazil, while their two companions have returned to Nigeria at their own request.
Friday went on to say: “I pray the government of Brazil will have pity on me.”
He left Nigeria after his peanut and palm oil farm was destroyed by flooding, leaving him homeless.
Now, he hopes his family will be able to join him in South America of his asylum claim is approved.
Father Paolo Parise, a priest at a refugee shelter in Sao Paulo, said that the group’s story was one of the most extreme he had heard.
He added: “People do unimaginable and deeply dangerous things.”
ReutersThey had been forced to drink their own urine after running out of water two weeks into the journey[/caption]
ReutersFriday decided to flee Nigeria after being left homeless by floods[/caption]
ReutersYeye called the perilous voyage a ‘terrible experience’[/caption]
