The family of beauty-salon owner Fathi Hussein are deep in mourning at their home in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, following her horrific death at sea after a deal she struck with migrant smugglers to take her to the French island of Mayotte went wrong.
“We were told by survivors that she died from hunger,” the 26-year-old’s stepsister Samira tells the BBC by phone.
The family learned from them that Fathi died in one of two small boats, adrift in the Indian Ocean for about 14 days, after being abandoned by the smugglers.
“People were eating raw fish and drinking sea water, which she refused. They [the survivors] said she started hallucinating before she died. And after that they threw her body into the ocean,” Samira tells the BBC.
Fathi’s family learned of her death from fellow Somalis who had been rescued by fishermen off the coast of Madagascar about a week ago.
The International Migration Organization (IMO) said that more than 70 people were on the two boats when they capsized, claiming the lives of 24, while 48 survived.
Hundreds of migrants are believed to die each year trying to make it to the tiny French island, located about 300km (186 miles) north-west of Madagascar.
On 1 November, Fathi flew from Mogadishu to the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, and a few days later left by boat for Mayotte – a perilous journey of more than 1,100 km across the Indian Ocean.
Samira says they are baffled by Fathi’s decision as she had a successful business in Mogadishu, and lived in the middle-class neighbourhood of Yaqshid.
Fathi hid her plan from the family, sharing her secret only with their younger sister, telling her that she had paid the smugglers money she had made running her beauty salon, Samira says.
“She used to hate the ocean. I don’t know why and how she took that decision. I wish I could give her a hug,” she adds.
Survivors told 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 smugglers said the boat had developed mechanical problems and would have to turn back.
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, says Samira, “it turned into 14 days” and led to the death of her sister and others.
Some of the survivors suspect that the smugglers deliberately left them stranded in the sea as they had already been paid, and had no intention of taking them to Mayotte, says Samira.
IMO regional official Frantz Celestin tells the BBC it is increasingly common for migrants to risk their lives trying to reach the French island.
“Just recently 25 people perished doing the same journey, usually transiting through Comoros and Madagascar. Generally this year has been the deadliest year for migrants,” he says.
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