“It was at night and the smugglers turned off all the lights on the boat, claiming we were being followed by the Coast Guard. But they were lying,” 19-year-old survivor Galgalou Haji Wacho from Oromo, Ethiopia, told IOM. “There was no Coast Guard. They started hitting us with sticks and iron bars.”Mr. Haji Wacho said he was in the water for nearly two hours, struggling to make out the coastline ahead. Regional governments and the international community must come together to address a situation of dangerous journeys facing migrants in the region since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Source: Ethiopian News October 07, 2020 17:05 UTC