The family of beauty salon owner Fathi Hussain are in deep mourning at their home in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, following her horrific death at sea after she struck a deal with migrant smugglers to take her to the French island of Mayotte that went wrong .
“Those who survived told us she died of starvation,” Samira’s half-sister, 26, told the BBC by phone.
From them, the family learned that Fathi died in one of two small boats that drifted in the Indian Ocean for about 14 days after being abandoned by smugglers.
“People ate raw fish and drank sea water, which she refused. They (survivors) said that before her death she began to hallucinate. And after that they threw her body into the ocean,” Samira tells the BBC.
Fathi’s family learned of her death from Somalis who were rescued by fishermen off the coast of Madagascar about a week ago.
The International Organization for Migration (IMO) said that more than 70 people were on two boats when they capsized24 died and 48 survived.
Hundreds of migrants are believed to die each year trying to reach the tiny French island, located about 300 km (186 miles) northwest of Madagascar.
On November 1, Fathi flew from Mogadishu to the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa and a few days later took a boat to Mayotte, a perilous journey of more than 1,100 km across the Indian Ocean.
Samira says they are confused by Fatha’s decision as she had a successful business in Mogadishu and lived in the middle-class area of Yakshid.
Fathi hid her plan from her family, sharing her secret only with their younger sister, telling her that she paid the smugglers with money she earned running her beauty salon, Samira says.
“She used to hate the ocean. I don’t know why or how she made this decision. I wish I could hug her,” she adds.
Survivors told Fathi’s family that the beauty shop owner and all the other passengers were in one large boat when they left Mombasa.
But during the journey, the smugglers said the boat had mechanical problems and would have to return.
Then, before returning to Kenya, the smugglers put all the migrants on two small boats, assuring them: “You will reach Mayotte in three hours.”
But, Samira says, “it turned into 14 days” and led to the deaths of her sister and others.
Some of the survivors suspect that the smugglers deliberately left them stranded at sea because they had already been paid and had no intention of taking them to Mayotte, says Samira.
IMO regional official Franz Celestin tells the BBC that migrants are increasingly risking their lives trying to reach the French island.
“More recently, 25 people died on the same journey, usually transiting through Comoros and Madagascar. In general, this year has become the deadliest for migrants,” he says.
