10 Nigerians Thrown Off Spain-bound Boat For Praying BUKOLA OGUNSINA, with agency report — Jan 17, 2015 | About 10 Nigerian Christians migrating to Spain for a better life met their death when they were allegedly thrown overboard for praying. The perpetrators of the act, it was reported, threw a Nigerian pastor and others who had joined him to pray when the travellers experienced bad weather mid-sea, blaming them for the worsening weather conditions. Two Cameroonian migrants have been arrested by Spanish police in connection with the incident, following accusations that they threw the 10 Nigerians overboard. According to Sky News, after hitting bad weather, a Nigerian pastor – one of around 50 sub-Saharan African migrants making the journey in an inflatable boat – began to pray that they would not sink and some of his fellow Nigerian migrants joined him in the prayer. Some survivors said the Cameroonian men accused the pastor of causing the stormy weather and then pushed him and the others praying overboard. When the survivors arrived in Spain, they appeared afraid of the two Cameroonians. This aroused the suspicions of officials. A statement from the Spanish police, shared on The West Australian, says that, “the detainees blamed the bad weather on the Nigerians who were praying and used the boards that covered the bottom of the boat to assault and throw overboard the pastor and the other Nigerian passengers.” The 50 migrants departed from northern Morocco on December 3 in an inflatable boat without a motor. They were hoping to make the nine-mile journey across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain. The boat was found adrift off the coast of Almeria, southern Spain, two days later by Spanish coast guard officials. There were 29 survivors, including a three-year-old child. The rest of the passengers who did not survive “perished due to the rough conditions of these types of voyages,” the police said. Thousands of African migrants risk the dangerous journey from Morocco to Spain every year but many of them never make it to Europe. Last year, 3,500 migrants stranded on boats off Spain’s coast were rescued by the country’s maritime rescue.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:42:10 +0000
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