‘They ran out of food’: Three stowaways clung on to a ship’s rudder on open ocean for 11 days in desperate bid to reach Europe

How bad would your life have to be to swim out to an oil tanker’s rudder with a plan of clinging to it for dear life for over a week in the faint hope of arriving in Europe? Well, three Nigerian men did it in 2022, crossing 2,800 nautical miles of open ocean.

The ship was the oil tanker Althini II, which left Lagos, Nigeria, on its oceanic journey, arriving 11 days later in Gran Canaria. Upon arrival, the three men were discovered by the Spanish Coast Guard and rescued. They were in a truly desperate state, suffering from dehydration and hypothermia.

They were rushed to hospital for treatment, with it becoming apparent they’d run out of food and water during their trip and were on the brink of death. In a disturbing twist, officials reported that the men said they were the ones who survived, indicating that others had fallen off at some point during the trip.

Txema Santana, migration adviser to the Canary Islands, confirmed that the men were on the brink of death: “…after a few days they ran out of food. So far, it is unknown if they have had access to request international protection.”

This is apparently possible because there’s a small “room” just above the rudder that’s intended for maintenance, though it’s exposed to the elements and is an incredibly dangerous place to be while the voyage is underway. Remaining here as a stowaway is rolling the dice on your life – one bad storm and you’ll be swept away into the Atlantic and drown.

Not the only time this happened…

Incredibly, this isn’t the only time this has happened. In 2023, four Nigerians survived a transatlantic voyage from Lagos to Brazil atop a rudder. They didn’t even know they were heading to Brazil, assuming the boat was heading to Europe and would be at sea for just a week. The journey took 14 days.

So why risk your life like this? One of the men on the Brazil trip laid it out, saying he’d spent three years trying to live an honest life in Lagos and failing, describing it as a nest of “crime and sin” and explaining: “People fighting, killing each other, terrorists attacking, kidnappers. I want a brighter future than that.”

And as for the men who made the trip to the Canary Islands? They put their lives on the line, endured misery that few reading this can imagine, all in the hopes of a better life. Their fate? They were deported back to Nigeria.