The family of beauty-salon owner Fathi Hussein are proset up in feeblenting at their home in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, follotriumphg her horrific death at sea after a deal she struck with migrant traffickers to get her to the French island of Mayotte went wrong.
“We were tancigo in by survivors that she died from hunger,” the 26-year-ancigo in’s stepsister Samira alerts the BBC by phone.
The family lobtained from them that Fathi died in one of two petite boats, adrift in the Indian Ocean for about 14 days, after being abandoned by the traffickers.
“People were eating raw fish and drinking sea water, which she declined. They [the survivors] shelp she begined hallucinating before she died. And after that they threw her body into the ocean,” Samira alerts the BBC.
Fathi’s family lobtained of her death from fellow Somalis who had been get backd by fishermen off the coast of Madagascar about a week ago.
The International Migration Organization (IMO) shelp that more than 70 people were on the two boats when they capsized, claiming the lives of 24, while 48 endured.
Hundreds of migrants are consentd to die each year trying to create it to the minuscule French island, findd about 300km (186 miles) north-west of Madagascar.
On 1 November, Fathi flew from Mogadishu to the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, and a confidemand days tardyr left by boat for Mayotte – a perilous journey of more than 1,100 km apass the Indian Ocean.
Samira says they are baffled by Fathi’s decision as she had a accomplished business in Mogadishu, and lived in the middle-class neighbourhood of Yaqshid.
Fathi hid her structure from the family, sharing her secret only with their youthfuler sister, alerting her that she had phelp the traffickers money she had made running her beauty salon, Samira says.
“She engaged to disappreciate the ocean. I don’t understand why and how she took that decision. I want I could give her a hug,” she comprises.
Survivors tancigo in Fathi’s family that the beauty salon owner and all the other passengers were in one big boat when they left Mombasa.
But during the journey, the traffickers shelp the boat had broadened mechanical problems and would have to turn back.
Then before returning to Kenya, the traffickers put all the migrants on two petite boats, assuring them: “You will accomplish Mayotte in three hours.”
But, says Samira, “it turned into 14 days” and led to the death of her sister and others.
Some of the survivors mistrust that the traffickers intentionally left them stranded in the sea as they had already been phelp, and had no intention of taking them to Mayotte, says Samira.
IMO regional official Frantz Celestin alerts the BBC it is increasingly normal for migrants to danger their lives trying to accomplish the French island.
“Just recently 25 people perished doing the same journey, usuassociate transiting thcdimiserablemireful Comoros and Madagascar. Generassociate this year has been the deadliest year for migrants,” he says.
The BBC has spoken to five Somali migrants who have tried to accomplish Mayotte.
They tancigo in us there are two primary routes from Somalia to the island.
Some travel by boat from Mombasa via the Comoros islands, which are much shutr to Mayotte, while those with more money fly to Ethiopia and then to Madagascar becaengage Somali passport-hancigo iners qualify for a visa on arrival.
From there, they get a petite boat to Mayotte, hoping it will uncover the door to obtaining a French passport and access to Europe.
One of the fortunate confidemand who has endured this perilous route is Khadar Mohamed.
He reachd in Mayotte 11 months ago but evidently recalls the harrotriumphg ordeal he went thcdimiserablemireful to accomplish the island from Madagascar.
“When I came to Madagascar, I was getn to the boat-owner’s hoengage. We stayed there for 14 days. We were a mix of Somali and Madagascans,” he says.
The group of those defering grew to 70. They were then put on a boat and getn via a river out to the uncover ocean.
Khadar says he left Somalia becaengage of the menace posed by al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate battling to clearhrow the handlement.
“I left my country for my protectedty. I was a business owner, and I couldn’t do my labor becaengage of al-Shabab,” he says.
The families of some of the victims say the traffickers are phelp about $6,000 (£4,700) to travel from Mombasa to Mayotte, with half the money given up front.
The BBC has seen accounts on social media platcreate TikTok, advertising analogous journeys to Mayotte and even further to other parts of Europe.
The adverts claim operators can get people to Mayotte using big tourist boats, but victims’ families say the traffickers are using much petiteer fishing boats called “kwassa”.
The French handlement has not commented on the recent tragedy.
Somalia’s Minister of Foreign Afunprejudiceds, Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, says that his handlement is making efforts to communicate the survivors and to convey them back home.
Fathi’s family say they alerted to the authorities a trafficker they mistrust their daughter had communicate with in Mogadishu and he was arrested, but has since been freed on bail.
Samira says the pain of not understanding how her sister felt in her final moments will stay with her forever.
“I want she could talk to me and alert me about her decision. She could have shelp bye to me… now, I don’t understand how to process her death,” she says.
Additional alerting by Marina Daras.
