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Geneva – The International Organization for Migration reports that it has helped repatriate 11 Ethiopians who escaped death after being locked in the container of a smuggler’s truck. They and dozens of other migrants who did not survive were discovered after the truck crossed the Malawi-Mozambique border in March. The operation was coordinated by the governments of Ethiopia and Mozambique, with the assistance of IOM and the Joint EU-IOM Initiative for the Protection and Reintegration of Migrants in the Horn of Africa.
Thousands of Ethiopians, desperate to escape poverty at home, each year make the dangerous trek from the Horn of Africa to southern Africa. Migrants reportedly pay smugglers between $ 2,500 and $ 6,000 for the promise of safe travel.
However, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration, Paul Dillon, says this particular trip turned out to be a nightmare and a heartbreaking experience.
“It was a tragedy that shook the African continent: the remains of 64 Ethiopian migrants found locked in a container in the back of a truck, discovered on March 24 near Tete, Mozambique … One month after escaping the death, the men agreed that it is a miracle they survived, “he said.
Dillon says the magnitude of his life-threatening experience is now emerging. He says the youths say that the traffickers tortured them and deprived them of food and water as they walked for days in the woods.
But the worst experience they say was being locked in the truck’s container for days. Dillon says migrants describe the horrors of being confined in a space that could barely hold 20 people, where 78 people were piled on top of each other.
After the discovery by Mozambican authorities, officials from the Mozambique National Migration Service took the survivors to a hospital in Tete, where the youth were treated for dehydration and exhaustion. They would pass a required quarantine period as part of Mozambique’s COVID-19 prevention measures, “he said.
While at Tete, Dillon says three of the survivors left the facility and have yet to be located. He says the other 11 survivors have been repatriated to Ethiopia, where they will be returned to their communities of origin in the regional states of Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples.
He adds that the driver of the smuggler’s truck has been detained and an investigation is underway.
