Lady who survived high sea shipwreck refused to return; says "I see no future in Nigeria"

The bodies of the dead Nigerian ladies were taken to the Italian port of Salerno by the Spanish ship on Sunday. Salerno prefect Salvatore Malfi told the press that they had been travelling alongside men and when the vessels sank, “unfortunately, the women suffered the worst of it.”

But in response to concerns that the women were being trafficked for the s*x trade, he added: “S*x trafficking routes are different, with different dynamics used. Loading women on to a boat is too risky for the traffickers, as they could risk losing all of their ‘goods’ – as they like to call them – in one fell swoop.”

Marco Rotunno, an Italy spokesman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), said his colleagues were at the port in Salerno when the bodies were brought in.

“It was a very tough experience,” he said. “One lady from Nigeria lost all her three children.”

He added that 90% of migrant women arrive with bruises and other signs of violence.

“It’s very rare to find a woman who hasn’t been abused, only in exceptional cases, maybe when they are travelling with their husband. But also women travelling alone with their children have been abused.”

“I wanted to reach Italy. I don’t know what to do now,” said Dora Omoruyi, a 23-year old arts student from Benin, Edo state, known as hub for human traffickers to smuggle women to Italy where they often end up as pros-titutes.

“I see no future in Nigeria, there are no jobs,” she said, standing with weeping Nigerian survivors.