Nigerian stowaways who survived 14

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Four Nigerian stowaways were found huddled in a tiny space above a cargo ship’s rudder after a harrowing 14-day journey — surviving by drinking seawater and their own urine after running out of food and drink.

The migrants hoped to reach Europe — but found themselves on the other side of the Atlantic in Brazil after a roughly 3,500-mile journey.

“It was a terrible experience for me,” ​the fittingly named Thankgod Opemipo Matthew Yeye, 38, said while being helped at a church shelter in São Paulo.

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

The four men ran out of food on the 10th day of the voyage and survived by drinking ocean water — as well as their own urine, according to The Times of London.

They also roped themselves to a makeshift net to stop themselves falling into deep waters where they could see “big fish like whales and sharks” mere feet below them, according to another of the stowaways, Roman Ebimene Friday, 35.

Brazilian police finally rescued the desperate group in the southeastern port of Vitória.

Two have been returned to their homeland upon their request, while Yeye and Friday have applied for asylum in Brazil.

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

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.”

The Rev. Paolo Parise, a priest at the São Paulo shelter, said the men were not the first stowaways who have been found in the region.

“People do unimaginable and deeply dangerous things,” the priest said.

Last year, three other Nigerian stowaways survived a similar ordeal on a 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.